Committee Transcript 1997-Feb-24 | Legislative Assembly of Ontario

Consideration of Bill 103, An Act to replace the seven existing municipal governments of Metropolitan Toronto by incorporating a new municipality to be known as the City of Toronto / Projet de loi 103, Loi visant à remplacer les sept administrations municipales existantes de la communauté urbaine de Toronto en constituant une nouvelle municipalité appelée la cité de Toronto.

WALTER JARSKY

The Chair (Mr Bart Maves): Good morning and welcome to the standing committee on general government's committee hearings on the City of Toronto Act.

Our first deputant today is Mr Walter Jarsky. Good morning, sir. You can come forward. Welcome to the committee. You have 10 minutes this morning to make a presentation.

Mr Walter Jarsky: Good morning. My name is Walter Jarsky. I live in Toronto with my wife. I've lived here half my life. My wife and I have raised our three sons in this city. I've lived half my life in Toronto and half my life in New York City and I've had a chance, through contact with my family and contact with friends and family here, to know what real estate taxes people pay in both cities, what income taxes, and what benefits they get.

I'd like to begin by talking to you about my first impressions in coming to this city in 1967 when I came to graduate school. I had gone to university at the City University of New York, which was a good university but it was crowded. We couldn't get seats in the cafeteria and there weren't enough books in the library. When I came to the University of Toronto, I was overwhelmed with the common wealth of the city and of the university. Then when I became aware of the health care system which had been implemented around that time, I once again was struck by the common wealth of the city and the country.

After I finished graduate school, and after spending a couple of years in the States, my wife and I decided to live in Toronto probably for one essential reason: because of the social freedom that we felt here, not necessarily the political freedom or the economic freedom, but the way the people related to one another and the tolerance with differences and ideas and colours and so forth and so on.

As we became settled in the city -- we raised our family in Parkdale for 18 years -- one of the things that struck us was the responsiveness of local government. My wife grew up in Belgium, which is a country of about 10 million people, perhaps overgoverned but less responsive, and I grew up in New York City -- not in Manhattan but in the Bronx and Queens, where the masses of New Yorkers live, so it doesn't have the glamour of Manhattan. Just as an ordinary person, there wasn't a sense that you could get on the phone and talk to someone and your problem would be responded to.

This was certainly the case in the neighbourhood where we lived in Toronto, even when it came to a point when in fact it was proven true that there were politicians involved in collusion with developers in the bachelorette issue. Even after that went on for years and years, local citizens were able to get the cooperation of representatives of government to take on that kind of problem of local corruption.

The issue that I would like to address in Bill 103 is basically the process of how it's being handled and even implemented, because parts of it are already being implemented. What I want to address is the democratic or the undemocratic elements of it. I really think democracy is in trouble in this country and the way this legislation is being handled is worsening the problems.

There's one idea that I want to address in my presentation. It's just one idea, and that is that if you act as if the ends justify the means, the means have a way of becoming ends in themselves. As this bill is being pushed through, it's eroding democracy, and that's becoming an end in itself. In other words, we're overriding true discussion of real, important issues because the importance of amalgamation overrides the democratic elements.

I want to say that I really appreciate the opportunity to speak before you, but I think we have a lot more to do than this kind of process. I think a white paper or a discussion paper needs to be presented to address what problems are trying to be solved with this bill so we can discuss it in principle. I'm not against amalgamation, but what problem are we trying to solve? This way we can have a fair discussion.

There are some unresolved national issues which I know don't come directly under this committee or this Parliament, like Quebec or native people. As a people, we haven't found ways to address these intractable problems. How we handle every small decision builds democracy, and if we erode democracy in the small decisions, we're incapable of handling the more difficult ones.

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There's one remark I would like to make about neighbourhood committees. I've been involved with various committees of schools or agencies where they were required or it was better if they had input from the community, and half the time that process was incredible, because eventually it was discovered, well, "We'll have as much local democracy as is necessary to show that we have local democracy; we'll only have enough to show that we do, but we really don't believe in it."

When we have a discussion paper, we need to address, if we're going to have neighbourhood committees -- and I really believe in the value of them, no matter what system we have, and in some sense we have them already with different neighbourhood associations -- we need to write down what they're going to look like and what kind of power they're going to have. I think in England there was some attempt at these local committees 10 years ago, and when the people realized they didn't have any power, they stopped wanting to participate.

That's all I want to say. I really think the process needs to be slowed down, and I think the discussion needs to be broadened and things need to be written down. I really object to parts of this bill being implemented on December 17, 1996. I think it's undemocratic, particularly the part that says the decisions of the board of trustees are final and shall not be reviewed or questioned by a court.

Mr Mike Colle (Oakwood): Thank you, Mr Jarsky. As you just ended in saying, one of the things we've forgotten in all the deputations is that the first thing the government did when it introduced this bill on December 17 was it essentially put 2.3 million people in Metro under trusteeship, and not subject to the bill being passed. As it says in the explanatory notes, "From December 17, 1996 (the date of the bill's introduction) and during the transitional year of 1997, a board of trustees will oversee the financial affairs of the seven existing municipal governments." So retroactively, these trustees were given powers, and as you said, these powers are not even subject to the courts; they're above the law. Have you ever heard of case like this happening in the States?

Mr Jarsky: I've been thinking about this. I was raised in Flushing, Queen's, where the nanny in that comedy sitcom is from. I don't know if you're familiar with that show, with that funny laugh and funny accent. I was looking up Flushing on the Internet, and it was granted a charter in 1645 by the Dutch governors. The local cities there have their own charter, so they have their autonomy. Here, the way the law is set up, I understand the local municipalities derive their power through the province. This may be part of our history, but in terms of the general history of democracy, it goes against the history of democracy.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr Jarsky, for coming forward to make your presentation today. We appreciate it.

SOCIAL PLANNING COUNCIL OF METROPOLITAN TORONTO

The Chair: Would Peter Clutterbuck please come forward. Good morning, sir. Welcome to the committee. You have 15 minutes this morning for a presentation. If at the end of your presentation there is some time remaining, I will ask probably the government caucus to ask questions, unless the NDP caucus comes in quickly.

Mr Peter Clutterbuck: Thank you, Mr Chairman and members of the committee. I've given you a package, most of which is appendices which we think are relevant to the issue under discussion in a number of ways. I will be referring to them as I go through what is also a prepared presentation that you have in front of you.

The Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto is pleased to have this chance to address itself to the standing committee on Bill 103. We're an independent, community-based, voluntary organization dedicated to social research, policy analysis and public education on issues that affect the social wellbeing of the residents of Metro Toronto. We have kind of a historic commitment to the whole regional local governance issue. We're about to have our 40th birthday as a Metropolitan body, having emerged from a city of Toronto body in 1957, which was just four years after the creation of the municipality of Metro Toronto.

We've witnessed the benefits of two-tier municipal governance in this region, and although extending our city mandate to the Metropolitan area in 1957, the SPC at that time made sure it also created local area governing councils so that citizens could identify local social concerns requiring study and action. I've included a historical document at appendix B that shows some of the thinking behind maintaining local governance, local input. What was quite interesting and distinctive about this development is that even though we became a Metropolitan Toronto body out of a city-wide body, these local governing councils ended up becoming autonomous, independent bodies at the area municipal level in every city except the city of Toronto over the next 10 or 15 years, indicating some of the sense of ownership and commitment people have at the local level to having influence on human service planning. We have worked effectively and productively with these local planning organizations on Metro-wide issues over the last 40 years.

In 1979, the Metro SPC produced a landmark report called Metro Suburbs in Transition, which documented the need for a more equitable social support system across Metro Toronto, and over the years Metro Toronto council has taken leadership and action in strengthening and improving the social infrastructure in this community, although in recent years there has been a good deal of erosion from budget cuts, not all strictly the municipality's doing because of downloading from higher levels.

The SPC's own history therefore reflects the very core of the current debate on governance; that is, how to balance the need for effective regional planning and development which achieves greater equity in the use of resources across the region with the need for affirming local diversity and assuring community access to the democratic and planning process.

The SPC was engaged in the discussion of appropriate governance models for the GTA last year, responding to the Golden report -- I've included a Social Infopac with our analysis of the Golden report as appendix C -- and we joined with 13 major Metro-wide human service agencies in presenting to the GTA panel of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, which is appendix D.

In January 1997, the SPC board stated its policy for evaluating proposed alternative governance models as follows:

"The Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto supports municipal governance structures and processes that: provide effective service planning and development at a regional level; assign local and municipal functions and responsibilities to the appropriate local and regional levels with a clear rationale for how the local and regional levels work together; are based on direct election of political representatives at all levels in order to maximize democratic accountability; and provide the municipal mechanisms and means for active citizen participation in local planning and decision-making."

There are at least three governance options that could be reviewed using this framework: (1) modifying the current two-tier Metro system; (2) upgrading the two-tier system with an effective regional governing body at the greater Toronto area level and maintaining four to six area municipalities in Metro Toronto; and (3) establishing a two-tier system with a GTA regional body and a unified Toronto.

Unfortunately, in our view, Bill 103 offers an incomplete model since its primary objective is to amalgamate the six Metro area municipalities into one big city. The bill is not clear about the new unified city's relationship to the GTA services board, which itself is still in the process of being defined. The assurance of maintaining local input via neighbourhood committees is vague and indeterminate. I think there are only two references actually to it in the bill. Finally, limiting the discussion to amalgamation within Metro does not permit full consideration of the whole governance issue for the GTA region as suggested by the above three options. On this matter, the SPC board approved the following resolution on January 29, 1997:

"The Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto believes that it is essential that the Ontario government provide a fair opportunity for a full and open public policy debate on any major restructuring of municipal governance, municipal-provincial finances, and social service delivery before implementing such changes in policy or legislation."

In other words, we do support the recommendation that's been here before around a white paper that presents options such as we've identified and perhaps some others and encourages real serious consideration about the benefits in relationships among all levels of government rather than just talk about amalgamating the current six.

There is an important link to downloading that really affects this whole debate. The Ontario government's own actions have also made it impossible to focus strictly on the governance issues of Bill 103. The SPC believes that a true and honest debate about governance cannot be held while the Ontario government remains committed to downloading major health, housing, welfare and social service costs on to the municipalities. In that regard, our board approved the following position on January 29:

"The Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto does not support the main thrust and direction of the Ontario government's announcements during the week of January 13, 1997 with respect to the devolution of major health, housing, welfare, and social services responsibilities on to municipalities and the property tax base.

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"The Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto sees devolution of these responsibilities as counter to the public interest in the following ways:

"It reduces the role and responsibility of higher orders of government (federal and provincial) to ensure equity and decent service standards in essential income, health, housing and social service supports for all Ontarians;

"It places essential income maintenance, health and social service supports on the regressive local property tax base rather than the progressive income tax base;

"It will promote highly variable standards of service across the province, increase inequities, and lead to levelling service provisions and standards to the lowest common denominator;

"It will give impetus to greater commercialization in human services, which will create a highly fragmented service system with less regulation of service standards;

"It will lower labour standards in human services, which will, in turn, lead to poorer-quality services less well monitored and inadequately regulated by the public eye;

"It will place an unfair caregiving burden on women for dependent family members; and

"It will severely weaken the role of the voluntary sector and its traditional partnership with government, which has produced highly efficient, high-quality services along with the additional benefit of supporting strong volunteer participation in active community life."

Current Ontario government discussion with municipalities on the setting of welfare rates indicates the link between municipal governance and the downloading actions. Municipalities forced to take on greater financial responsibilities naturally want more control over the costs they will incur. The inevitable pressure from the property taxpayers on elected municipal representatives and eventually on the provincial government will be to lower welfare benefits to the poorest parts of the population. We are not reassured by the community and social services minister's expressed intent to hold fast on the current rate as a minimum, which is already 20% less than it was a year and a half ago, especially as the next provincial election approaches.

The combination of Bill 103 and downloading also threatens the stability and quality of the social service infrastructure in Metro and in other communities across Ontario. Already, transfer payment reductions to municipalities in the last few years have caused cuts and cutbacks in the quantity and quality of municipally delivered social services. Further municipal grant cuts and direct provincial funding cuts to non-profit community services in the voluntary sector have also caused much hardship.

The SPC joined with Metro community services and the city of Toronto to do a survey on the impact of funding cuts in more than 400 community agencies across Metro Toronto. Entering 1996, 162 agency programs to the most vulnerable community members -- children and youth, women, seniors, disabled people and immigrants -- had already been terminated and another 437 were at risk of termination in 1996-97.

The downloading of social services will put tremendous pressure on municipalities to reduce their own direct social service commitments and to do their own offloading of social service responsibilities. Commercial operators will happily promise low-cost service and will accept contracts for everything from welfare administration to senior care to child care. The stronger entry of commercial operators into the field will weaken the voluntary service sector, even though our research shows that not-for-profit human services offer higher quality and cost-effective services compared to commercial operators for all but the very high end of the service market.

In the social services, the Ontario government is in grave danger of creating a highly fragmented and stratified three-tier human service system: high-end market services based on the well-off consumer's ability to pay the prices; lower-quality, outsourced commercial services and minimal public services for the broad middle part of the population, supported by a diminished tax base; and low-end community services for the impoverished and destitute delivered by voluntary agencies and churches and supported primarily by private charity.

Devolution or downloading responsibilities on to municipalities inevitably promotes minimalist government and favours a relatively unfettered private market, not just in human services but eventually in other public utilities as well, such as water and hydro.

Devolution policies shift responsibility from the collective public realm, in which the whole society shares costs and benefits in order to be as broadly inclusive as possible, to the private domain of individuals, families and communities, in which self-reliance is the paramount consideration for success and social support for the poor is left to the voluntary spirit and goodwill of the community. As well, this shift threatens to undermine social cohesion and to create a more divided society.

Bill 103 then is not really an honest proposal for restructuring governance in Metro Toronto. Like Bill 104 in education, Bill 103 is being sold to the public on the basis of the need for "less government," for "fewer politicians," and for "reduced bureaucracy and administration." The very role of government is being discredited, while market solutions are promoted as our salvation.

The social planning council suggests that before we can properly address ourselves to how many governments we need, what their relationships should be and how they should be financed, we need to determine exactly what we expect of our government and democratic institutions and not to assume that government has no constructive, meaningful role to play in shaping the quality of community life.

The Chair: Thank you very much. There are four minutes for questions, starting with Mrs Munro.

Mrs Julia Munro (Durham-York): Thank you very much. I appreciate your concerns in terms of the devolution of powers, but I'd like to go back to the specific issues you raised regarding Bill 103. On page 3 you outline three possible governance options that could be reviewed. I wonder if you'd care to comment on which of those three you see as the most promising.

Mr Clutterbuck: Actually, we as the social planning council are quite open to exploring in the community any of the three. We did not necessarily see that the existing two-tier system was broken to begin with, though we felt there might have been more rationalization of services between the two-tier systems. Our info pack in your package indicates that if there were an effective greater Toronto area body that was directly elected, that had powers and a mandate to ensure equity across the greater region, you could have a greater Toronto council and maintain the existing local municipal councils for closer, more direct government of the people, closer to the people, essentially. We identify that as a possibility in our social info pack.

Mrs Munro: In other words, you would have people who directly represent the Toronto interests per se, and then a GTA-wide group as well?

Mr Clutterbuck: Not just a GTA services board but an actual governing body at the GTA level -- that's a possibility -- which does have a mandate and taxing powers and responsibility for, for example, regional social planning and assurance of equity in social services as well as the physical infrastructure. Too often the social services side of things gets left out when restructuring exercises occur. We felt even the GTA report by Anne Golden was not adequate in this regard, as indicated in our info pack.

Mr Steve Gilchrist (Scarborough East): Thank you, Mr Clutterbuck, for coming before us this morning. I would like to follow up on what Mrs Munro was just asking you. As I look at your third choice, your submission, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, is that when the greater Toronto service board is brought forward with legislation later this spring, as long as it provides an effective means to balance off the needs and the income redistribution within the GTA, you're comfortable with the idea of a unified Toronto?

Mr Clutterbuck: We think that what needs to happen is that these three options, or maybe others, need to be presented to the community to discuss. Our role as a social planning council is to help to facilitate the community to review these three options. I think what's happened with Bill 103, as a result of the way it has been implemented, is that the government has stimulated greater thinking and commitment of people to their local area municipalities. The question is, would the same thing have emerged if these three options had been put in a white paper and offered seriously to the community for people to constructively discuss what they chose? I think there's been great demonstration before this committee over the last few weeks that people have a good idea of what they want at the local level, and for that reason there appears to be opposition here in Toronto, not just the city of Toronto but places like North York, to the idea of a unified Toronto.

Mr Gilchrist: Thank you, Mr Clutterbuck. I appreciate your group keeping an open mind in terms of the options we should be looking at.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr Clutterbuck, for coming forward and making your presentation today.

EAST YORK ACTION COMMITTEE

The Chair: Would Steve Talsky please come forward? Good morning, Mr Talsky. Welcome to the committee. You have 15 minutes for a presentation. If there's time left at the end of your presentation, I'll ask Mr Marchese of the NDP caucus to ask questions.

Mr Steven Talsky: My name is Steven Talsky. This is Elizabeth Rowley, also from East York. We are actually pinch-hitting. The person who was originally going to do the presentation was Margaret Watson, who would be on your list; unfortunately, she caught the flu from her child and both of them are at home. If you don't mind, we're going to try to pinch-hit this together.

Ms Elizabeth Rowley: Good morning. We're here on behalf of the East York Action Committee and we'd like to thank you for the opportunity to speak this morning.

The East York Action Committee is a coalition of parents and teachers, public and private sector tenants and homeowners, students and seniors, the employed and the unemployed. We are a coalition of individuals, labour unions and community organizations. The committee first came together to plan East York's participation in the Metro Days of Action last October and we've been meeting regularly since then.

Recently, we held two public forums in East York. The first, on February 5, was about both Bills 103 and 104; the second, on February 18, was called "A Community Forum on Fighting the Mega-board: To Save Quality Education." The events attracted well over 100 people each, and those people had a message they wanted us to pass on to this committee and to the government of Ontario: democracy.

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They wanted us to tell you that Bill 103 is breathtaking in its contempt for democracy. It places elected municipal governments under trusteeships indefinitely. It gives an appointed board of trustees the power to overturn almost any decision local councils make. Every move this board makes is made in secret, and though the board answers to the provincial cabinet, it's not accountable to the public. It is above the law. Elections are important in democratic societies, but for government to be accountable its decisions must be subject to the rule of law and open to challenge in court. Yet Bill 103 puts unelected appointees -- the board of trustees -- above the law.

We know that some people who have spoken before this committee have made comparisons to other undemocratic regimes, either metaphorically or directly. Some ministers and the press claim that this is name-calling at best or fearmongering at worst. But perhaps, like us, the name-callers are simply and truly appalled by Bill 103's blatant attack on treasured democratic rights.

Bill 103 attacks democracy in other ways. If passed, it would force amalgamation on the municipalities in Metro Toronto where people may not, and we believe do not, wish to have their local governments eliminated.

Perhaps it seems trite to provincial politicians, but it is nonetheless true that municipal governments and local school boards are the democratic institutions that are closest to the community. They are essential to our quality of life and people don't want to lose them -- we don't want to lose them. In our view, less government in practice simply means less democracy. We want to preserve the level of representation we currently have and we believe we have the right to democratic public control of our local institutions.

Government spokespeople and the media have taken to ridiculing local governments lately by pointing to this or that decision which may be particularly hard to defend, and from Scarborough to Etobicoke, it is easy to find some wrong or simply controversial decision or some example of undemocratic decision-making. Of course, it helps that municipal governments, with rare exceptions, meet in public. In East York we can watch council meetings on Monday nights on the cable station. When our local elected representatives, either individually or collectively, do something we disagree with, we know. In contrast, we never see the provincial cabinet meetings on the public affairs channel and not even the agenda for cabinet meetings are public information.

Since for us it's not a question of agreeing with every decision local governments make, the answer isn't to shut these governments down. To improve the quality of life in our community, we need to make governments increasingly open and democratic. We believe, and all the evidence demonstrates to us, that the megacity is a move in the opposite direction. Some other members of our committee have arrived, Ian Cameron and Frances Nordvie.

Perhaps, and finally, this is the bottom line: The East York Action Committee believes that the people who live and work and go to school in East York must have the democratic right to decide on the form their local governments and school boards will take.

(1) We believe that any restructuring must be voluntary, not forced, with the consent of the people in the communities affected and that municipalities and school boards must be recognized and given an independent existence in the Canadian Constitution.

(2) We call on the government to withdraw the trusteeships imposed on municipalities and school boards and withdraw both Bills 103 and 104, that have removed the power to govern from our elected representatives.

(3) We call on the government to repeal Bill 26 and restore the obligation of cities to hold a binding referendum on any proposal for amalgamation. We also call on this government to respect the decisions that will be reflected in the referenda to come on March 3.

Mr Talsky: In the past few days, Tory cabinet ministers, MPPs and Premier Mike Harris himself have stated that Bill 103 should be considered a distinct and separate issue from the massive downloading of costs and services to municipalities that the government has also planned. We are not fooled. In one week in January, cabinet ministers made a series of announcements that would change the financing and delivery of a massive number of services, from the so-called hard services like transportation and sewage to the soft human services like education, welfare and child care.

Some of these proposals, most spectacularly putting social services on the municipal tax bill, are exactly the opposite of what all informed observers have ever had to say on the subject. When bills come in, municipalities will be short hundreds of millions of dollars, as recognized by the fact that the provincial government has suggested there will be a special contingency fund for four years.

The government says the megacity will make Metropolitan Toronto better off. The government also says the downloading is revenue-neutral. But how could it be possible to hand the new megacity all these new costs without residential property taxes rising, by an estimated $800 on average in East York on the normal home?

The only possible way to use the new structures of governance to downsize, privatize and harmonize is to cut services, to increase existing user fees and charge new ones, and to take public sector jobs and transform them into low-paid private sector jobs.

The new city of Toronto created by Bill 103 would be a weaker municipal government in a number of ways. No, we are not fooled. The East York Action Committee understands that you need the megacity in order to download services and costs and, for the broader agenda, to downsize government and reduce services.

An integral part of this package is privatization. With the huge shift of costs to municipal governments, there would undoubtedly be increased pressure on the megacity to privatize or contract out services. There is no mystery behind the profits that the private sector can make when it takes over public services. From homes for the aged to garbage delivery, standards are lowered, corners are cut, user fees are instituted, accessibility is lost and accountability to the public goes out the window. It is also no secret that well-paying, unionized public sector jobs are soon transformed into less secure, lower-paid and sporadically unionized private sector jobs. We fear that once the public services are privatized the provisions in NAFTA will make it very hard to reverse the decision.

In the East York Action Committee, we understand the importance of quality public services and good jobs to the health of our community. Our fight for the quality of life in East York concerns all of us.

Taxation: We should remind ourselves that there is a need for reform in the greater Toronto area that started all this, to stop the flight of business from Metropolitan Toronto to outlying areas and to coordinate regional service. The Bill 103 downloading package will only worsen the situation for Metropolitan Toronto. In addition, taxation changes like actual value assessment and the repeal of the business occupancy tax are being used to transfer the costs of services to those who can least afford them and to hand a gift, in actual billions of dollars, to the wealthy.

The East York Action Committee supports cooperative sharing of services by local governments. We also demand a fair and equitable taxation system based on the ability to pay, a uniform commercial and industrial tax rate across the GTA and statutory transfer payments from the province to municipalities at levels adequate to fund services.

On February 5, 1997, approximately 150 East Yorkers attended a meeting at Valley Park Middle School and passed the following motion: "That this meeting calls on the government of Ontario to immediately withdraw Bills 103 and 104." We also have a petition that was signed by East York area residents at both of our recent meetings, again calling on this government to withdraw the legislation.

The East York Action Committee is not here to say slow down so you can get it right or to suggest ways to change the funding of social services so that downloading will become somehow palatable. We are saying this attack on our democratic rights and our quality of life must stop. Thank you for your time today.

The Chair: Mr Marchese, you have a little more than three minutes.

Mr Rosario Marchese (Fort York): I thank all of you for taking the time to come today to make your presentation.

I want to start by saying that the Urban Development Institute came in front of this committee, the hotel industry and many other business people who seem to have found that this amalgamation is good for them. Is there something wrong that some of you ratepayers just may have missed the whole point of amalgamation, that maybe there's something there that's good for you too and you just missed it?

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Ms Rowley: I think the one thing we didn't miss was the elimination of the business occupancy tax, which is obviously something that business would want, but that means they will transfer the cost of the tax. If we are to maintain current tax levels, that will be transferred on to residential property taxes, and we are seeing that with the imposition of AVA, which is a dressed-up version of market value assessment, as I'm sure the committee knows.

The other proposals for downloading: You can't have it both ways and there are in fact only two taxpayers, business and residential taxpayers. We see no reason why residential taxpayers should be asked to pay even more, particularly when corporations across Metro Toronto are appealing their taxes and it's coming out of schools. It's unfair taxation, in our view.

Mr Marchese: That is one of the fears with the occupancy tax, because once you remove a tax, you've got to replace it somehow with something else. So that is a problem.

The point I wanted to make is that business believes this is good for them, and I agree. This is good for business, for the developers. It's nice for them to have one place to stop for planning purposes, but many have come here, as you've done, arguing that it's not good for people in terms of issues of democracy, accessibility and sensitivity to people's local needs. That's what I've heard most of the deputants say when they came here.

Mr Talsky: The best comment I ever heard on this was when I attended a meeting at Bennington Heights in Mr Parker's riding, the heart of what we call the Leaside small-c conservative area. I heard the former mayor of East York, Alan Redway, speak. He, as some people would know, was a councillor in East York, mayor of East York, and a member of the federal cabinet during Brian Mulroney's time as Prime Minister of Canada.

He spoke very eloquently on the fact that having experienced it from all levels, from being an East York councillor all the way up to being a federal cabinet minister in a Conservative government, he believed that what we were going to do in creating this one Toronto, this megacity, would not be more cost-efficient. Having experienced it from the lowest level to the highest level, he spoke eloquently, and I hope he comes before this committee and speaks eloquently, about how good it is to have local cities, whether they be 100,000, 200,000, 500,000. I believe the optimum was 500,000 to be efficient in terms of costs.

The fact is, Mr Redway's whole argument was that the megacity will be too big and will become inefficient. So while business will have one-stop shopping, the ordinary ratepayers, whether it be my mother who lives in North York right now and enjoys having her sidewalk plowed with the little machine and the two-times-a-week garbage -- I think everybody will pay the price in terms of the inefficiencies of the megacity.

Mr Marchese: We think so, and most of the researchers who have done research on amalgamation have shown that it's more costly. Even Mr Harris in 1994, in a town called Fergus, said that bigger is not necessarily better and that in fact it would be more costly to have a bigger government. That's been my experience in terms of accessibility. The bigger you get, the more difficult it is to access those people. Is that not your experience?

Ms Rowley: Absolutely. Actually we're presenting a paper to you, and I think we're doing it right now, but if not, we'll submit it separately. It's an article in National Geographic from 1987 which shows the results of amalgamation in the city of Indianapolis, and it's devastating. One of the pieces the article shows is people in a community organizing bake sales and garage sales in order to pay for new sidewalks in their community. This isn't the way we want to go and there's been no public discussion about this kind of direction.

The Chair: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. We've exhausted your allotted time. Do you have a quick comment, sir?

Mr Ian Cameron: I'd just very quickly like to address this question of downloading of services on to the municipalities. I believe it's the responsibility of the province, employment, and where are people going to go from places outside of Toronto? If they're out of work, they're going to go to Toronto, so those problems of housing and welfare etc are not Toronto's alone. They are the responsibility of the province. Downloading them on to the municipalities, I think, is a great mistake. We are taking the people looking for jobs from all over the province in Toronto because there's a job market. I think that's a fundamental error, downloading on to municipalities these services.

The Chair: Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for coming forward and making a presentation today.

ELIZABETH BROWN

The Chair: Would Elizabeth Brown please come forward. Good morning, Ms Brown. Welcome to the committee.

Ms Elizabeth Brown: Good morning. I am the councillor for ward 11 in the city of Etobicoke. I'm here today representing my own views primarily, with a little bit of input from family, friends and a couple of colleagues on council.

Ward 11 is the largest geographic ward in the city of Etobicoke. Located in the northwest corner of Metro, it is very multicultural, very much inhabited by members of every socioeconomic group. However, surprisingly enough, it has almost 50% of Etobicoke's business, commercial and industrial base. That's 4,000 businesses in one ward.

Bill 103 proposes two new wards per federal riding. I say if this is the Common Sense Revolution, then let's be truly revolutionary. Divide up some of the work among the wards, along with the voters. Give every member of council some responsibility for truly representing business rather than letting them say they are pro-business and never having to prove it. Do not use federal boundaries as excuses to shortchange business.

My second topic is acceptance. I would like to say that after having spent the last five years participating in various committees and task forces concerned with governance review, I can't figure out why you would choose to have one big city. However, I come from a big family and one learns in a big family that one doesn't always get one's own way. I acknowledge that we have to start somewhere and I'm willing to work with the program. The status quo no longer works. I think your promise of quick and flexible response to problems is truly innovative for government and I hope it's true.

Evaluation: I suggest a legislated review period be included in the City of Toronto Act, 1996. Any successful business or organization continuously reviews and fine-tunes the way it conducts itself. Metropolitan Toronto hasn't been fine-tuned since 1977 and it is long overdue. Mr Robarts suggested in his report a review in no less than five years and no more than 10. The previous two governments refused to review, and in this way failed to acknowledge the importance of Toronto to Ontario's and Canada's economy.

Implementation: I would like to inquire as to the reason for your implementation method. I would have expected from a socialist government a design of governance framework that was then implemented by forcing people to comply for their own good. The usual Conservative way would be to design a better governance framework and it would be so good that everyone would voluntarily sign up, except of course for the noisy 20% of people who resist any change. I acknowledge that the province's historical experience with our seven governments is that we often choose not to voluntarily comply.

Non-unionized staff: Of great concern to my colleagues and the staff of the city of Etobicoke is the status of our non-unionized employees. The city of Etobicoke inside workers and the Etobicoke Public Library board employees have not been unionized. We ask you for legislation to protect the seniority of non-union employees. I believe this applies to East York as well. I understand that you included this in the Kingston-Frontenac amalgamation legislation.

Representation: Forty-four councillors and one mayor seems fair or it seems arbitrary -- any number would. The status quo would be continuing unfair lack of proportional representation, which I believe is unconstitutional. For example, the mayor of East York represents approximately 100,000 people. The mayor of Etobicoke represents 300,000 people and the mayor of Toronto represents 700,000 people. They each have one vote at Metro. Similar lack of proportional representation has been successfully challenged in the American courts.

Local delivery: My constituents have said they don't want to go to downtown Toronto for building permits, variances or to sign up for swimming lessons. They want local delivery of service from satellite offices. By also delivering the Metro services locally, such as business licences, service could actually be enhanced.

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Community identity: Because Metro Toronto has built out over the years into a contiguous urban area, most people aren't aware of municipal boundaries, and most of them don't care. Some people, though, are very aware of their community identity. We no longer have the municipalities of Weston or Thistletown, but these communities continue to exist. This will not change under Bill 103 because communities are held together by interested people, not by legislation.

I will comment now on some of the other recently introduced legislation as it affects the city to be created by Bill 103.

First, there's Bill 104. It's high time for educational reform. Some school trustees repeatedly tell us, as city councillors, that they don't answer to the taxpayers in general or to society but only to parents. So as soon as my youngest child graduates or otherwise leaves school, the trustee I vote for, the trustee who gets a vote on how my tax dollars are spent -- and this is the largest portion of my realty tax bill -- is no longer required to answer to me?

I'm very pleased with the changes proposed in Bill 104. I believe that society educates its young to have them become productive members of society. We educate them for the good of all, not just to meet parental wishes. The sooner there is provincial standardization, the sooner attention will focus on education rather than on bureaucratic finagling such as producing a newly designed report card every six months.

Assessment reform: Assessment reform is long past due and is very welcome in my corner of Etobicoke. I have personally helped over 1,000 different residents appeal their assessment under today's antiquated, obsolete and unfair system. In 1972, this province legislated province-wide market value assessment. It was ignored by several of the largest municipalities in this province. We welcome assessment reform and hope you start with the most hopelessly out-of-date properties first. It is guaranteed that if we don't get assessment reform, our taxes will go up, because they traditionally have.

Welfare reform: I have reservations about this proposal. Any large city attracts not just immigrants and refugees, but the unemployed and others seeking opportunity. Many find success, but how long should we be responsible for those who don't find success? If you give us the responsibilities for providing a social safety net, allow us to charge back North Bay or Newfoundland, Sudbury or Saskatchewan, or you may witness a Klein-like response where the cheapest solution is to buy people a bus ticket back whence they came.

Transit: Bill 103 and the transit reform suggested still fail to address the artificial barriers to service presented by the regional municipal boundaries. Please remove the monopolistic privileges of municipal public transit systems. Allow private providers to provide service for a fee: a shopping centre shuttle in a community or a racetrack shuttle, for example. Currently, there is no threat of competition and there will never be efficiencies without that threat.

Libraries: I am the chair of the Etobicoke Public Library Board and I've been a trustee for nine years. I welcome the opportunities the new legislation presents and congratulate the minister. A local service with local options and opportunities makes far more sense than one-size-smothers-all regulated service.

In closing, I like the overall package. Please legislate a review to prevent governance chaos in the future. I think most people aren't going to notice much change at all until they have a problem. By that time Bill 103 should have made how we are governed simpler and easier to understand, with easy access for the average person.

Mr Mario Sergio (Yorkview): Thank you, Ms Brown, for coming to make a submission to our committee today.

The introduction of Bill 103 has been made with the pretext that this will lower taxes, will offer better services and will give more and better representation. As a local councillor or trustee before, do you think this is going to be the case, that we're going to get some tax reductions?

Ms Brown: I can't guarantee that there will be tax reductions under any legislation, but what I can guarantee is that if we maintain the present system, the taxes will go up, because they have for the past 20 years.

Mr Sergio: Not any legislation, but Bill 103 as it is presented: What do you think?

Ms Brown: I think it's our best hope for a reduction in taxes.

Mr Sergio: But you don't see anything in this particular bill as it is presented; just a hope, maybe?

Ms Brown: I see some hope, yes.

Mr Sergio: I see.

Ms Brown: It can't be any worse than it is right now.

The Chair: Thank you, Ms Brown, for coming forward and making your presentation to the committee today.

SKIP WILLIS

The Vice-Chair (Mrs Julia Munro): Would Skip Willis please come forward. Good morning, Mr Willis. Welcome to the committee.

Mr Skip Willis: I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to appear this morning before this committee and to give my perspective on the range of issues involved in the proposed amalgamation.

My name is Skip Willis and I'm a self-employed business consultant resident in Etobicoke. I was born and grew up in Winnipeg, so I may not have the same emotional tie to my neighbourhood, but I've spent the last 17 years in Metropolitan Toronto so I am very familiar with the subject.

Having grown up in Winnipeg, I had the opportunity of living through this amalgamation process once before. When I was born, there were 13 municipalities that made up Metropolitan Winnipeg, each with its own government and bureaucracy, each with its own services and tax base.

In the 1950s, there was a recognition that reform was

required, and in 1959 there was a metropolitan government created in Winnipeg to try and deal with city-wide issues.

In this case, the process was further complicated by the rampant ego of the then mayor of Winnipeg, Stephen Juba, who refused to participate. So Winnipeg ended up with a bizarre doughnut configuration, with the metropolitan government dealing with the concerns of 12 municipalities and the city core continuing to plot an independent course.

This cumbersome structure stumbled along for some 12 years before we were treated to the unicity debate leading to the amalgamation into a single city. The debate at the time was very reminiscent of what I've heard over the past few months in Toronto. There was great concern that the unique nature of the various neighbourhoods would be totally lost. The municipality that I lived in, Tuxedo, had a population of 12,000 people. We knew the mayor and the chief of police by name. Surely all of this would be lost as we were swallowed up in a megalopolis 50 times our size.

In retrospect, it was amazing how little changed. We were less likely to encounter the mayor on the street, but the garbage continued to be picked up, the streets were plowed, the police were present, and life went on.

I would, however, add one word of caution in this whole process. Although we learned in Winnipeg that the quality of our community has everything to do with the people who live there and their attitudes and behaviours and very little to do with whether city hall was five blocks away or five miles away, I do not recall seeing the benefits of unicity being manifested in my tax bill.

I want to make my position on this point very clear. I have looked at the KPMG report and I am satisfied that the savings that they have enumerated are possible. My point is that although amalgamation can save money, that doesn't necessarily mean that it will save money.

Politicians are prudent spenders of taxpayers' money when they feel they have be. In the absence of that pressure, it is always politically more palatable to spend more. I believe that the order of magnitude of savings indicated are possible, but to achieve them will require dedicated political and administrative leadership and constant vigilance on the part of the taxpayer.

Amalgamation proceeded in Winnipeg because it recognized a simple reality: Winnipeg is one city. As I made my way down to Queen's Park this morning from my home office on the western edge of Etobicoke, I was struck by the similarity. Metropolitan Toronto is one city. I did not leave the distinct and separate entity of Etobicoke to enter the distinct and separate entity of Toronto. There is no border and no visa was required. This city has one downtown and one transit system. It is a seamless and integrated whole and it is long past time that it was governed that way.

I am not persuaded by the argument that a million people is the logical upper limit of how large a city can be and still be well governed. In my view, the unit size should be dictated by what makes sense. In Toronto, not only does one city make sense, it also reflects reality.

Information-age technology allows government to be as individual and local and specific as it chooses to be. The issue is not whether it can be done, but whether or not it will be done.

The most controversial aspect of the changes proposed by the government is the downloading of welfare costs to the municipalities. There are two critical aspects of this change. The first is the consolidation of the delivery of services at the municipal level. The second is the sharing of the costs equally between the province and the municipality.

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The delivery of welfare services by a single agency at the local level is long overdue. Currently, there are a myriad of welfare programs designed by four different levels of governments and delivered by a patchwork quilt of agencies across the province. For recipients, this can mean up to a half-dozen interviews, explanations and approvals to qualify for different programs. This system is inefficient, archaic, and the changes are long overdue.

The needs of welfare recipients are individual. These cases need to be dealt with by a single case worker comprehensively at the local level so that the support can be appropriate to the needs and the realities of the local situation.

The fiscal pressure faced by governments at all levels is not about to abate. From a private sector perspective, it is very frustrating during the budget debate at all levels of government to see the discussion focusing on cutting services. We in the private sector have faced the same pressure throughout this decade. Our clients and customers want more and are prepared to pay less. We can respond to these pressures or we can go out of business. Cutting services is not an option. It is amazing how productive and creative we can be when we have to be.

The service delivery structure proposed for welfare allows for the flexibility and creativity necessary for service delivery into the next century. If we are to maintain adequately funded programs into the future, we must reform program delivery. This is a necessary first step. I take the strongest possible exception to the vested interests who believe that preserving their jobs and defending the status quo is more important than ensuring benefits are adequately funded in the future. Make no mistake, these are the options.

The downloading of costs to the municipalities is, in my view, largely mathematics. I have reviewed the list of proposed changes and funding responsibility prepared by the government, and they appear to be revenue-neutral. If the numbers based on historical experience and current budgets are inaccurate, then adjust them. Examine the rationale for the reserve fund carefully. Run the models. If adjustments are required, make them.

As this process goes forward, I have two requests. First, please resist the temptation to scaremonger. This debate is too important to inflame it with the suggestion that Toronto, post-amalgamation, could become another Detroit, with a derelict, dangerous downtown and citizens fleeing to the suburbs. It is not true and it is not useful.

Second, please remember that regardless of your ability to dream up new forms of taxation, there is only one taxpayer. Whether I pay my share of welfare through my property tax or income tax or some consumption tax is a matter of virtually no interest to me. A reasonable system of social welfare that helps the less fortunate is an important part of a civilized society. Whatever taxation route you chose, they all end up at my pocket.

My priority is to see an efficient system that eliminates duplication and delivers benefits equitably at the lowest administrative cost. In the future, I expect to deal with government like I deal with my bank: on line, from home, any time of the day or night. The question of what is federal or provincial or municipal is far more important to you than it to us. We want better service delivered more conveniently at a lower price. This bill is a useful small first step in that direction.

Thank you for the opportunity of speaking to you this morning.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Willis. We'll ask Mr Marchese. We have about a minute.

Mr Marchese: Mr Willis, I had about four questions of you, but I'll start with the last one. You say that however you pay taxes is irrelevant to you, whether it's through property taxes or income taxes. I have to tell you it's very relevant to most human beings; it is particularly relevant to me.

The property tax is an unfair way to pay for services, most of us argue. Income tax is much more progressive; it's based on income. If I invest all my life savings in a house and you keep on taxing me through the property tax base, I get hurt by it, whereas if it's based on income, it's a lot more fair to pay for services that shouldn't be dumped on to the property taxpayer. That's my view. Is that not your view too?

Mr Willis: The point I was making is that there is a portion of my total income or total ability to pay that goes to taxes: some to property tax, some to income tax, some to value added taxes and the whole mix of them. My concern is that we focus on the efficiency of service delivery to lower the costs without compromising the service provided, rather than focusing on which route you take to get into my pocket.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Willis, for appearing here before us today.

GEORGE STEPHENSON

The Vice-Chair: I'd like to call on George Stephenson. Good morning, Mr Stephenson, and welcome to the standing committee.

Mr George Stephenson: Ladies and gentlemen, my name is George Stephenson and I've been a resident of Toronto for close to 50 years. I am a chartered accountant, an FCA, and spent 35 years in business in the financial heartland of downtown Toronto, many of them in executive ranks. I have served on the boards of many charitable and arts organizations, both national and local.

I have also assisted with the political process, from raising money for candidates from all three parties through to acting as an adviser. One of my favourite memories is raising money for the first mayoralty campaign of David Crombie, then considered a very dark horse.

I have lived in the Oriole Parkway, Lawrence Park and Moore Park areas of Toronto. I now live not very far from here, just west of the university. Since my retirement from business, I have been an active member of the board of my local residents' association. I believe my knowledge of this city is thorough.

I want to thank you for the privilege of making this presentation and I want to emphasize that I do not come here to do battle; instead, I come to reason.

It is to the process, or lack of process, concerning Bill 103 and related proposed legislation that I wish to speak. You have heard from many others concerning the serious inadequacies, indeed mistakes, in the proposed legislation. Attempts by the government to correct them may be well intentioned, but it is my strongest belief that these inadequacies or mistakes have been overtaken by a process so deeply flawed as to leave only one option open: A new process is needed to give both the government and the citizens it represents a fresh start.

There is no need for the extreme rush now under way. Yes, there will always be some opposition to change, but yes, I and many others believe change is needed in our municipal governance. Yes, we have had several studies and we should get on with it, but no, not with a confrontational and dictatorial process which tells the citizens that the proposals of the most credible and detailed studies will be overridden and essentially ignored and, on top of that, does so without providing any real, lucid rationale for doing so.

There is no need for the government to fear the electorate if it is doing the right thing. There is no rationale behind the view that the government must get this done now, this year, because in another year, 1998, eyes will be turned to the forthcoming election.

I want to repeat that I and, I know, many others believe that change in our governance is needed. It will be welcomed if done in a reasonable and reasoned process. It will be a plus for the government in a forthcoming election, but pursuing the present anti-democratic stance will be its insidious, devastating and ultimately terminal cancer and undoing.

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Approximately one year before the introduction of Bill 103, the omnibus bill was presented. There was outcry against that bill. It was seen in its comprehensiveness and executive regulatory powers as undemocratic by some. Many Ontarians let it pass; they couldn't believe that Ontario's democratic and due process traditions could be at risk. But it was a wake-up call. Even Premier Harris, on the 1996 anniversary of his election, mused that the omnibus bill might have been a mistake in so far as trying to accomplish too much too quickly.

Now a new anti-democratic process is under way which has unleashed a torrent of grass-roots anger and activism like none of us has never seen, and it is totally bipartisan. Have you on the committee witnessed it?

The opposition is so strong that any attempt to steamroll ahead by the government will, I believe, leave a festering, destabilizing pustule of suspicion and discontent. That will be twinned with continuing political opposition at the local level and the certainty of administrative turmoil, if not chaos, in municipal administration and services as rather frantic attempts are made to try to sort out the many complexities.

I have seen many business mergers. They are almost always difficult, even with goodwill and agreement. Without that, certainly if they are forced, the difficulties are multiplied many times and chances of success are radically diminished. If the proposed amalgamation should now proceed, the twins of dissension and turmoil will inevitably result in economic instability, which is the bane of business and the antithesis of a healthy economy.

Risk is always an element of change, but the extreme risk which we now face is not necessary. It can and must be avoided. This sequence of events, this summary, speaks for itself:

(1) We, with the government, dutifully awaited the Golden report. When it was released there was some political opposition to it, but there was significant popular respect and support, which has subsequently grown.

(2) We, with the government, awaited the findings of the Crombie panel. While there was the usual wrangling about their activities, the panel process enjoyed wide public respect.

(3) But before the panel's work was completed, rumours circulated, fed by vague and cryptic statements by Mr Leach, suggesting that he was taking already determined steps, no matter what, implying that little or nothing is working well in the municipalities, fostering confrontation and providing no process for reasonable discussion.

(4) That confusion threw local politicians into the difficult position of trying to respond quickly without meaningful discussion with the province. In these circumstances, their attempt to respond was predictably short of the mark.

(5) Mr Leach made it clear that he intended to proceed, no matter what citizens thought. He distributed an advertising circular and was found in contempt of the Legislature.

(6) A barrage -- a blitzkrieg -- of legislation was introduced, clearly interrelated, with enormous economic and related consequences, with extremely short implementation schedules, containing proposals at odds with those in the earlier studies and offering no lucid rationale for the differences.

(7) A public outcry has resulted and is growing in which all parts of the community are taking part. People not usually involved in politics are engaged and deeply concerned. They find fault with the legislation, but it is with the process that they express outrage.

It is essential to restore confidence that democratic process will be respected. Tinkering with the legislation is not going to achieve that. I ask that this committee recommend to the government in the strongest possible terms that there be a fresh start: (1) a white paper, lucid and complete, supported by studies and data for its proposals; (2) a process for comprehensive, intelligent and reasoned input and debate; and then (3) legislation which reflects the best of what is learned in that process.

May I direct my final remarks to the members of this committee who are also members of the Conservative caucus. I ask that you use all of your powers of reason and persuasion to achieve this fresh start. I am a strong believer in our party system. I came from Conservative roots. During my lifetime I have voted for all of the three major parties and I'll continue to vote for the party which makes most sense. Your party, the Conservative Party, has been and can be a credible option for the electorate.

The Vice-Chair: I'm sorry. You have gone past your time. Can I ask you to just --

Mr Stephenson: I am just winding up. If you are truly in touch with the immense outcry, do you really believe the process now seen as anti-democratic will, if not changed, be overlooked? Do you personally want to be a part of that? Can you imagine trying to govern Ontario, if you are so fortunate as to retain power, without any representation in your caucus from Metro? If the economic engine of Toronto chugs rather than purrs, or belches smoke and stalls, then you know Ontario will follow. Do you want to risk, without needing to do so, becoming Ontario's equivalent to the government of R.B. Bennett?

The Vice-Chair: I'm sorry to interrupt you, but we have gone well past the time. Thank you very much, Mr Stephenson.

Mr Stephenson: I have one final comment. They're not threats. These are genuine concerns. For the health of your party, your government and all of us, give us a new and fully democratic process. You will be lauded for it personally, as will our government. Thank you.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much.

TOM FIORE

The Vice-Chair: I'd like to call upon Tom Fiore. Good morning, Mr Fiore, and welcome to the standing committee.

Mr Tom Fiore: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the committee. My name is Tom Fiore. I'm more than pleased to be here to give you my two cents' worth. I know you've been doing this for several weeks, and just from the few people I've heard, I can imagine there has been a lot of repetition in the presentations.

I basically believe that when you come right down to it, the arguments for this particular thing are whether this glass of water is half empty or half full. I basically like to think that it's half full. I have great confidence in the political system. In fact, I have supported many candidates. I'm quite involved politically. I enjoy all levels of politics and I seem to feel that in the end common sense does prevail -- pardon the pun.

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I thought I'd give you an overview of where I'm coming from in regard to why I think the way I do. In 1949, when I first arrived at Union Station with my family when I was four years old, coming from sunny Italy to Union Station in December I can remember to this day that morning when we walked out of Union Station and behold there was the skyline of the city of Toronto, the Royal York Hotel. Yes, that was in fact the skyline of Toronto at that time.

At that point the realization came to my father as has become folklore among people in the Italian community that the stories he had heard about the streets in Toronto being paved with gold were not true. In fact, the streets here were not even paved and we were expected to pave them. We continued on. We first moved to the Junction, Keele and Dundas -- wow. It's still there. The Junction is still there, Keele and Dundas is still there, and I can go back there, and I often do, to show my son where we came from at one point. It's great going there.

Shortly thereafter, we moved up to Davenport and Avenue Road, the Annex. It was a beautiful area. I went to Cubs in the church basement of one of the local churches there, and the Annex is still there. Shortly after that, we moved up to Yonge and Eglinton, north Toronto -- yes, north Toronto was in fact north Toronto -- and lived there for many years, went to high school, and north Toronto is still there.

The neighbourhoods to me were based around where the local hockey rink was. Eglinton Park had a hockey rink. That was our community. If we wanted to play with the kids in other areas, we'd go to Chaplin Crescent. We'd walk down that far, or if we were really ambitious, we'd go to Leaside. That was an adventure. But by the time I was 13, my then hockey coach would take us up to Downsview or Weston. They're still there. At one time Roger Neilson -- yes, the same Roger Neilson was my peewee coach -- was so adventurous that he would take us up to Bolton. All these places are still there. It has been a natural evolution. In regard to this discussion, again I feel that it's either half empty or half full. I like to look at it as half full.

To get specific in regard to that, I believe unification in Metro is the natural evolution of our urban reality. I believe in one vision, I believe in one economy and I believe in one culture. I think within Metropolitan Toronto from King City to the lake, from Etobicoke, maybe even Mississauga, to Scarborough it really is one. When we go away and we go back to Italy or wherever we go for our holidays, there's only one place we say we're from. We're from Toronto. When we cheer for our local baseball team, hockey team, basketball team, again it's one vision, it's one economy, it's one culture.

Unification for me will increase political accountability and help end duplication and waste. I firmly believe that, as I've heard others speakers say before, knowing the local fire chief -- I remember knowing the local fire chief. Well, there are six chiefs. Is that really necessary? So many things just keep on going on and on like that. Is this duplication creating waste? I believe it does.

I have a feeling that the approximately 30% voter turnout at municipal elections clearly demonstrates that citizens either don't understand or don't care about municipal government. The double-tier municipal government creates in my mind confusion. As I have been reading in the media, approximately 70% of essential services are already unified: police, TTC, water, sewers, garbage, major roads and traffic, ambulance, day care, welfare. Surely we can unify the remaining 30% of services under one municipal government. We only have 30% to go. I don't think that's much.

Next, unification means one powerful voice for economic development in our region. As the saying goes, "Too many cooks spoil the broth." Too many existing cities are chasing the same international business opportunities, creating confusion for potential investors and putting us at a disadvantage with larger cities in the United States. Would it not hold true that too mayors spoil business opportunities?

The status quo is not an option. You've heard that several times on the pro side, and I guess you've heard contradictory on the other side. It's time to consolidate our gains as a growing metropolis, not isolate ourselves within six city boundaries. It's time to promote growth, not isolationism. I firmly believe there is potential for savings and that vision will be up to the collective will of the newly elected 44 members of one unified Toronto to make it work.

That's basically what I have to say on the positive side of my particular argument in support of unification of Toronto or of the greater Toronto area, Metro Toronto. But one point that in fact really irritates me is the process by which the referendum is being conducted. I really can't make sense of the procedure. There are rules for this, rules for that. When it comes to voting no for a megacity, well, I may vote no for a megacity, but I would vote yes for a unified Toronto. Who is selecting the words?

In my apartment building, and it has been in the media consistently, I thought I was the only one. I was going to phone down and say: "Hey, look what's happening. There are all these envelopes here. They're just going in the garbage, or are they going in the garbage?" But then of course as we've been hearing in the media, it's rampant throughout Toronto.

There is no respectability for the way this referendum is being conducted as far as I'm concerned. No matter what the outcome, whether it's 100% for amalgamation or 100% against amalgamation, it's irrelevant in my particular point of view because it is not justified in its approach. It's non-binding. That's one particular aspect. I guess that's the legal aspect. But to me, the point is that it just hasn't been done in any particular way which holds credibility.

Anyway, ladies and gentlemen. I'm pleased that I was able to share those opinions. I have several friends who were on the march down Yonge Street and we've had several good cappuccinos, espressos and drinks over the matter. But I believe that parade, which was staged as pit bull diplomacy, will go the same way as the parade it was meant to mimic, the 1837 so-called rebellion. Everyone got pumped up for that at Montgomery's Tavern, therefore, they had all the juices required to be motivated down Yonge Street, but one shot and everyone scattered and life went on.

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The Chair: Thank you, Mr Fiore. We've come to the end of your allotted time. I want to thank you for coming forward and making a presentation.

Mr Fiore: That was 10 minutes, right on?

The Chair: Yes. A little bit beyond actually.

Mr Fiore: Jeez. I don't even get a question from Mr Marchese.

The Chair: No, not this time. Thank you very much for coming forward to make your presentation today.

ALAN SAMUEL

The Chair: Would Alan Samuel please come forward. Good morning, sir, and welcome to the committee.

Mr Alan Samuel: I have lived or worked in the city of Toronto and Metropolitan Toronto for over 30 years and I currently am teaching at the University of Toronto just a short walk from this room. I'm very glad to have the opportunity to make some specific points in connection with the proposal to amalgamate the municipalities which make up Metropolitan Toronto.

In general, I think it has been said over and over again to the committee that, more or less, the current governmental structure works reasonably well and that it works at least well enough to make Toronto a choice internationally as an excellent, indeed the best, city in which to live and work.

I think we should consider some of the reasons for this. In my opinion, a very important reason for the satisfactory condition of Toronto today lies in the governmental structure, in fact the large number of municipal politicians with whom we work. The structure and its reasons for success can be understood, I think, if we look back some 20 years to the important ward boundaries case heard by A.J. Kennedy of the Ontario Municipal Board and argued by the distinguished jurist, the late J.J. Robinette.

At issue then was the layout of proposed wards in a redistricting system. For a long time, the city had been made up of wards in a so-called strip system, which mingled north and south Toronto, and also mixed communities of very divergent interests. Argued before the municipal board was the proposition that democracy is best served if cohesive communities are able to obtain their own representation and are not combined with other communities with other needs creating the need for representatives who will balance interests and decide which interests will be represented. The board accepted this argument, created block wards, and the differing communities of the city thenceforth obtained representation of their needs and created a political system in which council learned of, and then arbitrated, many of the issues.

The proposed representative system for an amalgamated Toronto overturns this fundamental and vitally important board decision and it destroys the pattern of representation in this city. To reduce the number of civic representatives to 44, whether or not districted along the lines of existing ridings for higher levels of government, will inevitably re-establish the sort of local representation in which the representatives must balance too many different interests.

You yourselves, in your own experience I'm sure, are aware of the difficulty of deciding an issue when the interests of your constituents run counter to what you perceive as the larger interest or are contrary to party policy. You yourselves, operating at a higher level of government, and federal representatives too, have these problems, but because the issues you decide are rarely narrow and local in nature, you can serve a fairly wide area and a large number of people.

Local government is different. Issues are often very, very narrow indeed and related to matters like one-way streets, times of garbage collection, building standards, modifications of established planning rules, development matters and the like. Here we want representatives who will be answerable to residents in the communities affected. We want someone who can represent the interests of north Toronto, of High Park, of Swansea, Rosedale, Rexdale, Cabbagetown, Willowdale, Victoria Park, and so on. We do not want a small number of representatives, each of whom will be forced to balance not only the issues you must balance, but also the contrary and contradictory interests of their own constituents.

With only 44 representatives, the costs of running for local office will go up, and there will be fewer of the people who work their way into political life through local organizations, the school board, and then aldermanic races. It will simply cost more to run an aldermanic race. Fewer people will be able to find financial support to run or be self-funding, with the result that the power of money will have an even greater role in local politics than it has now. Since in Toronto political decisions often have ramifications of great financial gain, this funding pressure can distort local politics seriously.

Basically I am saying that for all the desire to save money, reducing the number of local politicians is not a good idea. It may surprise you to hear someone speaking out for politicians, and I am not arguing that all citizens love them so well that they would want hundreds and hundreds. But politicians serve a very useful purpose in our society. We may complain about them, make nasty remarks about them, we may challenge their intelligence and their integrity, but we need them and we need them in sufficient numbers to make our system work. At the local level, we need enough of them to ensure that most of the physical communities in Metro Toronto obtain their own representation so that the local politicians are constantly brought to represent their constituents and not those who are able to finance them.

If you accept my contention that politicians, in reasonable and necessary numbers, are a good thing, then the amalgamation issue takes on different colours. It's a good thing to have a mayor representing the interests of North York or Etobicoke, which are different communities from, say, Scarborough or Toronto. It may make sense to include East York and York in the city of Toronto in a future amalgamation as these three units have much in common. You will also see the benefit of maintaining the Metro structure to deal with issues that are city-wide, matters of policing and perhaps of firefighting, which, however, may really answer better to local control.

I agree that it is frustrating and confusing to citizens to deal with the two levels of government, and there may well be ways to improve the current system, but trashing it completely is not the answer for the reasons I have stated. If you ask me to choose between the status quo and an amalgamation of the sort proposed, I would have no difficulty in choosing the status quo as a far superior form of local government, with all its difficulties.

Finally, if the provincial Legislature is attempting to ensure the preservation of the high quality of life of Metropolitan Toronto, then let it deal with the greatest threat first. That threat is the disparity of taxation between Metro and the so-called 905 communities. There are many reasons for this disparity and many unfortunate results of it, and it will ultimately lead to the collapse of the central core community and economy.

There have been many proposals for dealing with that and some of them are currently embodied in legislation on the order paper. I suggest that this problem be solved first and then, when the greater context is suitable for the prosperity of the urban core, let's look at core government again in light of the decisions made for the greater Toronto area as a whole.

Mr John Hastings (Etobicoke-Rexdale): Mr Samuel, how do you specifically propose to deal with assessment reform without amalgamation?

Mr Samuel: I think assessment reform can be dealt with --

Mr Hastings: What form of assessment reform do you favour, unit value over the other two?

Mr Samuel: You're referring to the current proposals for market value assessment?

Mr Hastings: AVA.

Mr Samuel: I don't think the two are necessarily tied together at all. The provincial government could change assessment reform completely without affecting municipal government at all. I don't think the two are tied together. I agree that it is necessary to change the assessment process.

Mr Hastings: What level of taxation on your own property do you pay today: modestly low, significantly high or in between?

Mr Samuel: I own a small apartment building, so I'm probably overassessed at the current time.

Mr Hastings: Have you appealed your property tax?

Mr Samuel: I haven't appealed the property tax, no.

Mr Hastings: Do you realize that under the existing great system of assessment that about $100 million annually go through assessment appeals?

Mr Samuel: Yes, I do realize that.

Mr Hastings: Do you accept that as a part of the status quo and that there's not much you can do about it and we should just live with it?

Mr Samuel: Frankly, in what I have said today I'm not addressing myself to the issue of assessment at all; I'm addressing myself to the issue of amalgamating the municipal governments. In terms of assessment reform, I would personally, I suppose, benefit if the current legislation goes through. I'm certainly not going to address myself to that issue at the moment.

The disparity of assessment between Metro and the external communities is one that I think is a serious one for Metro and I trust that reform will fix that. But I don't think the two issues of how property is assessed and whether we have 44 representatives are tied together at all, and I'm addressing myself to the second issue.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr Samuel, for coming forward and making your presentation today.

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KEITH MARTIN

The Chair: Would Keith Martin please come forward. Good morning, Mr Martin, and welcome to the committee.

Mr Keith Martin: I want to thank you all very much for the opportunity of appearing here today.

I'm really here as a private citizen of the city of Toronto. I am concerned with some of the issues arising out of the proposed bill to amalgamate the five cities and one borough of Metro Toronto into one governmental body.

I currently live in the Don Vale neighbourhood of Toronto. It's a neighbourhood which most people think of largely as Cabbagetown and it's represented in the provincial Legislature by the honourable Al Leach, who is bringing forward the amalgamation legislation.

I can already see a pattern here; most people want to reveal to you the story of how they ended up in Toronto, and I think that might be an interesting story out of all of the collective presentations you've had, but I have lived here for 30 years. I've also had the opportunity at various times to live in other cities, other communities, even other provinces and small villages, and these various living environments have given me some perspective on living in Toronto and led me to the decision to live here, to choose to live here and to choose to live in an historic neighbourhood and to participate in the life of the city.

It's in my professional life that I've run across a number of interesting parallels or concerns that may have some light to shed on some of the concerns around amalgamation.

I have a small company which raises funds for non-profit agencies in the arts, health care and other social concerns. I am not involved in the glamorous areas of fund-raising, but rather I design and carry out small donor programs to acquire small donors, primarily using the telephone.

Telefunding can be likened to hand-to-hand combat in fund-raising. There's no glitter, no glamour, little recognition and certainly no prestige. However, there is the satisfaction of helping worthy organizations to continue their work and in some cases even to survive. Occasionally there's also some satisfaction in knowing that politicians envy us telemarketers for our high standing on the trust scale.

We also feel the pulse of the community on a daily basis because of the feedback we get directly from the people. It's this area that I wish to speak about, an area of feelings, concerns, ideas and emotions.

Shortly after the announcement of the introduction of Bill 103 I started to hear media comments from the opposition to this legislation. As the days and weeks have gone by, these comments have resonated with some of the feelings and impressions that I have gotten in the almost 12 years of carrying on my activity in direct fund-raising. I have become dismayed and somewhat appalled by the acrimony of the public protest and some of the overheated comments. The attacks have often been highly personal and in my opinion even vicious.

The question I have to ask is, if the concern is maintaining neighbourhoods, how can we do so if we can't maintain simple civility? It's always been my feeling that neighbourhoods should engender goodwill toward others and that living harmoniously in an urban environment requires a higher degree of common courtesy.

I am concerned that regardless of the outcome of the proposed legislation, we must be able to find a way to live together in the future.

I support the amalgamation legislation because I see it as a recognition of what already exists: that the majority of municipal services are already amalgamated and that this is a logical evolution in the growth of the city.

However, I do not think that amalgamation will destroy our existing neighbourhoods any more than Toronto's annexation of Yorkville in 1883, due to the village's need to pay for infrastructure, including roads and sewers, destroyed that neighbourhood.

While I feel that for many people the concern for their neighbourhoods is very heartfelt and genuine, I feel it's wrong to place undue concerns upon this proposed legislation and. In fact, I feel that a lot of the protest and concern and heat are not necessarily related to this piece of legislation. It is merely the touchstone for long-standing feelings of concern, frustration, alienation and fear.

The reaction to the legislation is only part of a progression in the decline in the quality of life in Toronto. In my professional activity we talk to many generous people who have built volunteerism and donation into their lives. However, we in Toronto are not growing new philanthropists. Toronto is currently Canada's black hole for direct fund-raising. Increasingly the people of Toronto are disengaging from the social needs around them.

Despite the acknowledgment of financial need, despite the acknowledgment of the usefulness of the institution in need, Torontonians are more likely to say no to non-profit solicitations than any other citizens in the country.

This is not a function of lack of financial resources. The most generous Canadians in terms of per capita donations are the people of Newfoundland, our poorest province in terms of per capita income. What exists and what is concerning me is that this is a matter of generosity of spirit, the willingness to sacrifice and contribute to a common goal.

Increasingly Torontonians define the donor as somebody else. I get comments like, "Well, sure I've been coming to your theatre for many years and I know that someone else is paying for half of my ticket, but why are you approaching me for any money?" Or, "Why should I give you money when I have an unlimited supply of good advice?"

For several years in the late 1980s and early 1990s I lived for most of the year in a small city where I raised funds for a large theatre. At the end of every season I would return to Toronto and each year I would progressively become disturbed by the decline in the quality of life in Toronto.

People on public transit and in public meeting areas would look grimmer, greyer and more desperate. The behaviour became more erratic as pressure mounted. Even at rush-hour and in normal day-to-day living activities people avoided eye contact. They were more and more self-contained and they seemed to avoid interaction by withdrawing from each other out of fear. In my opinion, a great deal of the resistance to amalgamation legislation is merely a reflection of the predisposition of Torontonians to say no to anything.

However, that being said, there are good reasons for concern about the amalgamation process. Will some of the taxes that were applied in the 1980s, like the parking tax, road taxes and such that seemed to target Toronto specifically, be removed? Will the removal of the tax burden from school taxes and the assumption of new tax responsibilities put us on an even footing with jurisdictions like Mississauga, which seemed to have been the main beneficiary of the previous tax inequities? Will the commitment of monitoring the effects of change and the establishment of emergency funds in the areas of social programs help to quickly establish a balanced financial and tax situation? But most important, will the people of Toronto regain their normal degree of generosity and take a more personal responsibility for making improvements in the quality of life in Toronto?

I am satisfied that, given the record of this provincial government in doing what it says it will do, that these problems will be fully addressed and that these potential problems can be overcome, but only with goodwill.

In my opinion, Toronto has much to gain from a single tier of municipal government in terns of a clearer mandate to plan and to meet future challenges. However, I can understand a certain amount of public confusion, because if we really can't trust a government to do what it says, then just whom can we distrust?

I also have observed a strange phenomenon. Despite the fact that many of the solutions for our problems -- economic, social, environmental -- are global, universal or cooperative, there is a desire, usually on the part of politicians, to break up responsibilities into smaller geopolitical units.

I feel that the scale and nature of the proposed one-tier Toronto government is appropriate and sufficient to coordinate the planning and to provide the required service needs of the population of an amalgamated Toronto.

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If it is helpful, I would like to provide another wry and unfortunately kind of cynical perspective on the amalgamation process. This is outlined in a process called the Six Phases of a Project as defined by the Centre for the Study of Murphy's Law. The first phase is always elation, followed by confusion, followed by disillusionment, followed by the search for the guilty, punishment for the innocent, and distinction and honours for the non-involved.

I hope this doesn't mean that Mel Lastman will become the mayor of the amalgamated city and will allow it to be renamed Melville. Instead I'm simply asking that we tone down the rhetoric and that we practise living together, with respect for differences of opinion, and that we as Torontonians regain our generosity of spirit and contribute to those institutions which define us as a civilized, caring community. Regardless of what the communities are labelled, I feel that these are the community values that must be protected. Thank you very much.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Martin. You have exhausted your allotted time. I want to thank you on behalf of the committee for coming forward this morning to make your presentation.

TOM JAKOBEK

The Chair: Would Tom Jakobek please come forward. Good morning, Mr Jakobek, and welcome to the committee.

Mr Tom Jakobek: Mr Chairman and members of the committee, needless to say I don't envy any of you and I certainly wouldn't want to say anything bad about a room in this building, but I can't imagine a worse job than being cooped up in these hearings in this room the whole time, so I'll try to make my points as quickly as I possibly can.

Obviously change is inevitable and change is absolutely necessary for our cities to survive. City politicians have been negligent, in my opinion, in not coming forward with the need for change.

I'd like to talk to you for a little bit about the city of Toronto and about just how we're doing. I'm the city's budget chief and have been, off and on, for five years and I want to tell you that the city's financial picture is not a pretty one. This is the city's operating budget, the entire $511,276,540.23, right there. I just finished it on Friday, and I have to tell you that having taken it from $627 million in 1992 down to $511 million, there isn't a lot more to cut.

We could probably look at closing a firehall or two and extending the amount of time it takes to get to a house. We could probably talk about cutting back on some of the wading pool and swimming pool hours, but I'm not sure we want to. Yes, we could talk about imposing new user fees, so if your kid wants to learn to swim, we charge you $25 or something, but again, we've looked at it I think from a fairly intelligent point of view and said we don't think we want to do that.

The reality is that there really isn't much more to cut in this budget, and yet the need to cut down and continue to stop raising taxes couldn't be any more evident or necessary. It costs today to rent office space in downtown Toronto -- 66.3% of the cost is municipal taxation. They can't survive. We can't raise it. Forget about just the home owners. Business can't afford to be in Toronto, so we don't have an option of raising taxes, we really can't find the room to cut any more, so some form of change, some way of doing things differently, is necessary.

That bright idea didn't come from Queen's Park, necessarily; it did come originally from Toronto city council -- or do you remember? -- back in 1991 when we felt so compelled that the system was broken and that the system needed to be fixed that we actually held a referendum, a legitimate one. The only problem was that we only asked people one question; we only gave them one option: "Will you support us in getting rid of one level of municipal government, that being Metro council?" Mr Colle will remember that. It wasn't a very fair referendum, in the sense that we only asked one question, but the result was absolute. The result was two thirds of the people saying, "We agree, one level has got to go." So I say to you that what you need to do as a Legislature is to deal with the financial crisis which exists, and let there be no question about it: There is a financial crisis in our cities.

I appreciate the fact that there are always different viewpoints. It's a shame, actually, that the first viewpoint on this issue came from six mayors, because a picture of six mayors was evidence enough to most people that there were six too many. I think it has also been unfortunate that Mr Sewell has now become the spokesperson in place of the six mayors. Why, you say? I served with John. John didn't support the CN Tower, he didn't support the domed stadium, he didn't support the convention centre, the Scotia Plaza or, for that matter, the Eaton Centre, which is celebrating their anniversary. You can't be any more negative and against things, and I defy any one of you today to tell me that you'd tear down any one of those structures. I really don't think we've had a good position put forward on what the alternatives are, because change has to happen. There has to be something that's coming forward.

Four cities, in my opinion, if that's the suggestion, isn't the answer. The city of Toronto is not economically strong enough, financially viable enough, to handle the strain of most of York and/or East York. We can't do it, plain and simple.

Sure, Mayor Nunziata will take me to task and say that I'm wrong when I say that York is for all intents and purposes bankrupt. She will say to me that it's not true that the city is always sending fire trucks into York. It is true. I can give you the run sheets. She will tell me that it's not true that her sewers and roads and facilities are dilapidated by most other municipality standards and that a lot of their capital projects are in sorry need of repair. In fact, the most general and the most small-c conservative estimate is somewhere between $62 million and $71 million. But the reality is that she has a problem there.

East York -- wonderful place, I know it well; I worked in East York for many years -- is holding its own, but that's all it's doing. East York is holding its own even though it continues to falter, and it continues to falter because its tax assessment is gone. Originally when it was put forward as a municipality, they even went so far as to cut below Danforth Avenue in order to give it what's called Shoppers World at Victoria Park and Danforth to increase the assessment. It never took off, never happened, and now when you go up to Laird and Eglinton, huge factories that covered an entire site are gone and they have a big, new, modern Canadian Tire store. It doesn't pay the taxes that are necessary to sustain that municipality. When you drive from my constituency into East York, the roads are shot, the facilities are second-rate. It's not holding its own.

We in the city of Toronto can't afford the huge burden of taking over those two municipalities, so you'd have to carve it differently. It's not just the drop in assessment, it's not just the dilapidated infrastructures, it's not just the operating problem; it's the huge debt we've incurred. Right now the six municipalities in Metro have incurred a deficit, and this is not just a deficit with regard to outstanding liabilities. That goes right off the page in terms of pensions and other things. I'm talking hard deficits where we've just spent more money on capital projects than we should have. The total debt is $864.9 million. It's almost $1 billion.

Let me tell you something. The city of Toronto, which was at $237 million in 1994, and which has brought it down to $138 million, has done so because to a large extent we had a huge reserve that we could draw on, called "the sale of the Langstaff farm lands," which we used to help us get towards a debt-free situation; but secondly, we've cut back on our capital projects. I'm getting complaints every day about potholes. I've been around for 17 years. I've never had as many complaints about potholes. The reason for it is that we have had to cut back.

That debt is absolutely overwhelming for some of the smaller municipalities. Think about it. Etobicoke spends 13 cents of every dollar it receives in taxes to pay down a $49.5-million debt. York is at $21.4 million. So even when they tell you they've got their debt under control, the only reason they have it under control is they've had to cut back seriously on capital projects which are already in need of repair.

What's the answer? Sure, we need things like federal government infrastructure programs, which really saved a lot of us recently. The three improvements in East York that Mayor Prue argued with me over on the radio were all paid for through for provincial, federal and municipal dollars, through the infrastructure program. Those programs do work, they do help us.

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I'm not a member of the Legislature and I don't want to profess that I know what you should do, I don't, and I'm not an expert on this place; I've been in this building for a deputation and made a deputation five times in my entire career, so I only come up here when I think it's important. But I want to be bold enough to say to you today that I think that today the role of the opposition is not to oppose everything the government does; I think the role of the opposition is to make sure that the government says what it's going to do.

As I see it, the government has acted because of a lack of action. With the greatest respect to the Bob Rae government, or for that matter the David Peterson government, we didn't act. We simply didn't act. Municipalities have known this is coming for a long time. We didn't act. We didn't do anything. We haven't proposed any alternatives that are viable. We haven't suggested anything other than trying to keep a mayor or a number of members of city councils elected. That's all we've ever done. So this government is acting.

I tell you that the greatest encumbrance on you as a government, for those of you who are members of the government, are two things: First, your financial changes have to balance. There are too many people like me around who have the books who can tell you that. They have to balance. If I was in a negotiating position, I'd throw in the kitchen sink at the first announcement too, but at some point you have to decide on what's fair and what's not fair and you've got to make sure it balances, because you can't afford to have the most important engine in your province stalled. Second, on assessment, whatever system you pick, just publicize the results so that people know what the results of those assessments are before the legislation is actually enacted.

That's all I have to say and I want to thank you for your time.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Jacobek, for coming forward this morning and making a presentation.

Mr Jakobek: I brought the seven phone books, Mr Chairman, for everyone to see, because obviously there's some saving in just the printing costs.

KEVIN GARLAND

The Chair: Would Kevin Garland please come forward? Good morning and welcome to the committee.

Mrs Kevin Garland: Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for the opportunity to speak today. Just quickly, my name is Kevin Garland, and I am a woman. I was born and raised in Toronto and I have two children and now three grandchildren. I'm a member of the board of directors of the United Way and also of the National Ballet. In my professional life I have a master's degree in urban and regional planning and I've spent over 20 years in the real estate industry. Most recently, I'm with CIBC.

First, let me say that I absolutely support the need for reform of local government -- I think it's essential -- and that the status quo is just not an option. However, I have to tell you that I am very deeply concerned and deeply opposed to the changes that have been proposed. Coming out of my corporate background and experience, I've been through a number of large corporate reorganizations in my life. They tend to be very disruptive, very difficult in human terms and also very difficult in economic terms. The only way they are effective is if they have very clear objectives and goals going in. I think there are some very clear objectives and goals for municipal government in the greater Toronto area.

First, regional coordination of economic development and of the infrastructure that supports it: This is something we simply don't have today. We have a very fragmented and competitive and inequitable government system that operates over the whole greater Toronto area.

Second, we have to level the playing field on property taxes. As many of the speakers before me have noted, there are huge inequalities. Particularly, the business tax on both small business and on large business in the downtown is completely inequitable and is driving businesses to look elsewhere, and it isn't always elsewhere even in Toronto or in Ontario. It's elsewhere in Canada and then elsewhere out of the country altogether and that's very frightening.

Third, in Toronto we've enjoyed a really extraordinary quality of life and it's one of our big competitive advantages in a global economy. The fact that people choose to live downtown, to live in the older suburbs, to live in the suburbs and that they have that choice is one of our great strengths. It has to do with the fact that we have a diversity of neighbourhoods that are safe and strong, and that we have a multiplicity of ethnic communities that live together reasonably harmoniously and that we're able to respond with varying service levels to their needs.

Finally, criteria for local government reform needs to be clear accountability. People need to feel that they can understand that they can affect, that they can have an impact on local government, and it needs to be accountable.

One of my concerns with the present plan is it doesn't meet any of these tests. It doesn't do any of these things. It does nothing to deal with the regional fragmentation or the need for a single economic unit. It simply ignores the fact that the GTA now exists in its present unwieldy form. It clearly doesn't save money. All the studies we've seen over the past few months have shown it doesn't save money to amalgamate and create a megacity.

It does abolish effective local government and deeply damages and removes people's ability to understand and to respond, to deliver service at the local level and to understand and effect that delivery of service.

Finally, because the implementation plans are so unclear at the moment, my concern is that it's going to lead to at least three or four years of extreme disruption to the economy, extreme disruption to human services, just as Toronto is barely pulling itself out of the most difficult recession I've seen in my lifetime.

Mr Jakobek, who preceded me, said he hadn't seen any reasonable alternatives to the current proposal. I would heartily disagree. Having read the Golden report which was provincially funded and well-thought-out, with two years of serious work with some very good consulting studies to back it up, it laid out some very clear guidelines for a very clear alternative and a viable one, which was that you would devolve as much accountability and service delivery as possible to the local level of government, while establishing a GTA-wide level of government to deal with economic issues and regional infrastructure issues that need to be coordinated.

I simply cannot understand the unwillingness of the government to deal with and come to terms with these issues. I cannot see any benefit to creating a megacity that doesn't deal with any of these issues. I don't believe that the government is here to hurt Toronto, as much of the rhetoric has led us to believe, but I just don't understand and I would certainly appreciate it if anyone on the committee could give me an understanding why it is we're proceeding in this way, which seems to me to meet none of the critical issues that are before us. That's all I have to say.

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Mr Colle: Thank you very much, Mrs Garland. In terms of the uncertainty, and maybe to try and point out why the government is in this mad rush, essentially there's a linkage. They are about to introduce a massive new tax system into Metro Toronto which will be very unpopular. In fact, it's so unpopular they're refusing to release the results of the impact studies on assessment. They've done that in the same week. On top of that they're basically abolishing local school representation into one mega-board of 300,000 students. Then you have this megacity, this big, huge government they're creating. That is why there is no plan, no business plan. How would you figure out your taxes?

Mrs Garland: You can't, obviously. Although I have to say that I do agree with the need for market value assessment. I do agree with the need to reform the property tax system in the GTA. I think that's essential. Also, a previous speaker mentioned the $100 million in assessment under appeal at any one time. The tax base is eroding and the result is further and further need to increase taxes in the downtown. As someone who is deeply involved in business in the downtown, I'm very concerned about that.

Mr Colle: I guess the critical point there, whether you agree or disagree with market value assessment, is I think it's incumbent upon the government to release its neighbourhood impact studies so a business or a homeowner can find out how much money they're going to have to spend on property tax over the next number of years.

Mrs Garland: I certainly wouldn't question that, Mr Colle.

Mr Colle: In terms of the alternatives, you mention an alternative that has gone through detailed analysis. The most detailed analysis has been the Golden report, which looks at the GTA and at strengthening local government, yet the government totally rejects this because it doesn't fit its agenda, whatever that agenda is. Are you in support basically of strengthening the local governments into a federation of the GTA local governments?

Mrs Garland: Absolutely. I don't doubt there is some need for reform of the local government as well. I'm concerned, particularly by the previous speaker's account of what's happening in York and East York. But I don't think that creating a megacity of the type that's being proposed is the way to solve that problem. What it leaves totally unaddressed is the issue of the GTA. When Metro was created in 1967, it took into account the whole of the economic unit that was Toronto at that time. Toronto's economic unit now is much bigger than that and the failure to address that strikes me as being frankly just irrational.

Mr Colle: As you know, Mayor Hazel McCallion said this is a mega-mistake because it doesn't create a proper balance in the GTA to address those long-term goals that we have to achieve in terms of being competitive in terms of coordination.

Mrs Garland: It's a major concern. We are now playing on a global playing field competitively and we need the strength to be able to do that. I can only see that happening at the GTA level. I just don't see a bigger version of Metro being able to do it.

Mr Sergio: Just a quick question if we have a few seconds: The board of trade came out swinging against the report because of the impact it would have on businesses, especially small businesses within Metro, a $7,900 increase per year, let alone the residential portion. How do you feel that any business in Metro Toronto's going to be hit with almost $8,000 a year?

Mrs Garland: I have to say I'm deeply concerned. As someone who watches both small business and big business in the business I'm in, I am well aware that given the increasing level of communications technology it's so easy for business to move now. My own organization -- and I'm not speaking for them, obviously -- has moved two major call centres out of Ontario completely, one to Halifax and one to Regina, because it costs less to operate there. Those decisions are becoming easier and easier every year as it is easier and easier to communicate electronically. It deeply concerns me that property tax and occupancy cost is now a huge amount of people's operating budget and it's the one you look at and target.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mrs Garland, for coming forward and making your presentation today.

PALMERSTON AREA RESIDENTS' ASSOCIATION

The Chair: Would D'Arcy Robert please come forward? Good morning and welcome to the committee.

Mr D'Arcy Robert: Thank you for the opportunity. I am the convenor of the Palmerston Area Residents' Association. I have given you a handout here just in bullet form and I'll try to keep to the time.

I am a representative of a residents' association which is just to the west of Queen's Park. This is made up of a group of concerned and involved residents who are both tenants and owners, and both tenants and owners are on the executive. They are also members and non-members of various political parties. We have one concern right away: Is the residents' association going to be replaced by a neighbourhood council and is a neighbourhood council not just another word for a residents' association picked by the local residents?

Process: We have concerns about the process because it was my understanding that for a government it is necessary to not just be fair, but to appear to be fair.

The timing of the beginning of this announcement about amalgamation -- obviously I'm going to speak about downloading too because the downloading issues are probably even more important to us than the amalgamation. The timing of the initial announcement during the Hanukkah and Christmas holidays, the downloading week where every day was another issue that was very substantial, the lack of consultation prior to any of these announcements, and then also during the holiday season the unprepared and rushed KPMG study, all lead to concern that there is even a process. Although we are thankful to have this opportunity today, these things are sort of after the fact.

We feel it's important to include people so as to feel part of the process. It's a very 1990s sort of thing, but inclusiveness is important. It makes people grasp the issue and feel part of it, which I do not believe the people of Toronto do and have for the last six to eight weeks.

I believe the taxpayers and investors deserve better. We expect a higher level of professionalism than to have a lot of these very important issues shoved at us during holiday season and at the beginning of January. We should have confidence in the process and also in the outcome. This has been mentioned by the last few speakers. There are going to be concerns. There is going to be disruption. There is no doubt there is going to be costly disruption, and while everyone is trying to deal with the costly disruption, we will be losing investment and business in this city.

The amalgamation, so we all know, is seven governments into one. We've all heard the statistics about how big it will be, bigger than many provinces. However, it's clear there are various cultures which are going to be merged. One city is not better than the other, York is not better than Etobicoke, but they are different.

As a downtown area, there is a concern about the tendency of the suburbs to vote as a bloc. I think that is a fair thing to say. We all know people in North York have similar concerns about traffic and schools etc as people in downtown Toronto, but there is a difference. Suburbs are a post-Second World War creation and they have different issues.

I want to mention some specific matters from a meeting that the residents' association hosted on January 21 at Harbord Collegiate. Mr Marchese was there as our local MPP and also Mr Gilchrist was there as a representative of Minister Leach.

We had a woman speak very poignantly about a number of issues, but her main one was that she was a cyclist. She pointed out that cycling in North York is just not the same as it is in Toronto. The city of North York was not necessarily built for cyclists and the speed and size of the streets make it a sort of daunting process. There are different transportation needs, and I'm using this as a very simple example of that. The city of Toronto has different transportation needs than the suburbs.

There was also a man at this meeting who worked in a group home, but pointed out he was probably also all right because he was an entrepreneur. He pointed out the downtown location of many social services. The group home he worked in contained a number of residents who were not just from the city of Toronto. They were from the surrounding area, the suburbs. They were also from the 905 belt because this is where the location of the services are: in the city to a large degree.

Mayor Hall came to the meeting. She's the mayor of 650,000 people versus 2.3 million. I doubt very much she would be able to attend as many meetings. Also, along with the councillors, we are concerned about less representation because the councillors will not have as small an area, as local an area.

I think the actual costs of amalgamating 54,000 employees and a $7-billion budget have been mentioned many times. That is going to take time. There is going to be disruption. Everyone knows it and we don't seem to be getting the solutions or hearing what possible solutions there will be, nor are we being given enough time to deal with it.

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I want to mention briefly the downloading of costs to municipalities. I've mentioned five here which would, I think, affect our area more.

General welfare: The municipalities will now be responsible for 50%, as opposed to 20%.

Family benefits, which are for the more permanently unemployable people: Municipalities will be responsible for 50%, as opposed to zero.

Long-term care: We all know we're all getting older. We are now, in the municipalities, going to be responsible for 50% of that cost, a cost that is clearly going up. We have been responsible for zero cost. Anyone who has had elderly family members who have had to enter a home in the last while know it's not a pretty picture at the best of times. There was confusion over some legislation implemented by the last government and now there's more change. Throw it all up in the air and see what happens.

Second to last is social housing, which is going to go from zero to 100% as a municipal responsibility. I think we're all aware that the Metro Toronto Housing Authority hasn't exactly been a great manager of the housing and that the housing is in poor condition. I am very concerned about that cost.

TTC: As a downtown area, many people prefer and rely on the TTC. That cost is going to go from 50% to 100%.

Education: I realize this is another bill, but these are concerns that have come up in the residential area. We hear about non-educational costs. Is the music department an extra? Is heat an extra? This is what people are asking. This is what people have been told. I don't know; maybe you do.

Valid concerns over such fundamental changes: These are very fundamental changes. As we all know, people are generally concerned about their children and how they are being educated. There is a fear of more decreases in funding and obviously increases in class sizes, as outlined by the one of the panelists at our meeting -- grave concerns about that. Another parent at our community meeting mentioned fewer after-school activities and extras compared to when an older sibling was at the school. These are very concrete things that people have noticed and expect to get worse.

There is also the concern about the educational money from Toronto and control going to the province. We've been raising our own money, and also the control due to the amalgamation of the school boards --

The Chair: Mr Robert, you're coming to the end of your allotted time. You might want to get to the conclusion.

Mr Robert: Speed up, okay. I think there is a need for change. As has been pointed out by Mr Jakobek, there was a referendum question which called for the elimination of the Metro level. We know there is a need for it. We believe the Trimmer, Golden and Crombie reports have all been of some use. Minister Leach, at the North Rosedale Ratepayers Association, could not come up with a city where amalgamation has worked and mentioned Toronto.

We believe that the public services are important. The residents appear to be overwhelmingly opposed to the amalgamation of the seven governments and the downloading of the social services. We don't know what the advantages are for a downtown residential neighbourhood just to the west of Queen's Park. Meanwhile, it is heartening that during this period of uncertainty, residents of the area are working on issues such as the revitalization of College Street between Bathurst and Ossington, the Garrison Creek project, which passes southward just to the west of our area, and bylaws to enhance and maintain the vitality of Bloor and College.

Lastly, there are many people in the area who believe or are under the impression that these fundamental changes are a tax grab from the municipalities in order to fund the provincial income tax cut. Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Robert.

NORMA PIGGOTT

The Chair: Would Norma Piggott please come forward. Good morning and welcome to the committee.

Mrs Norma Piggott: I'm sorry I'm a little nervous. I didn't expect so many people around. I would like to present my reasons for being in favour of the amalgamation. I've been at a lot of local meetings and find that there are a lot of vocal groups which are making a lot of noise but yet in the audience there are a lot of people sitting quietly not asking questions, and they're not clapping either. I would like to perhaps express some of the views those people are thinking in those local halls.

Historically, Toronto has always grown and changed. I was a geography teacher and taught about Toronto's growth and change; it's always growing and it's always changing. People I know in other parts of the world -- I live in North York -- ask me, "Where's North York?" I live in Toronto, they understand that, "But where is North York?" Toronto has grown to take in the villages around it, and it still grows. But Toronto is less than 200 years old. It's still a very young city compared with many cities. Even when it's amalgamated at 2.3 million, it will still be quite a small city on a world scale, and so it's not the large government that a lot of people are talking about.

We've already had amalgamation, in 1954 and 1966. The boundaries are straight. They don't define communities. Communities have nothing to do with those boundaries and they won't in the future either. I really don't understand all the hysteria and talk about chaos, about changing some boundaries that are only 30 years old. We changed them 30 years ago; why can't we change them again? It's not as though all this is in stone, and it never has been throughout history. Toronto still has a lot of growing to do compared with many other major cities.

The next point I'd like to make is what I call "central places." Toronto is the central place of Ontario and it should be governed as such. The places grow according to the services provided and the markets for them. If you live in a small place, you may not have a dentist in that place, because there aren't enough people to supply enough business for that dentist, and so you have to go to the next bigger place. As services become more specialized, you find them in a more central area and the clientele is over a much wider area to support those services. So we get a hierarchy of settlements that's built up in this way, and it culminates in a central city, which for us is Toronto. We find there things like the head offices, the stock exchange, specialist hospitals, specialty stores and businesses and the major entertainments. We need a government to keep this centre attractive and vibrant and growing as Ontario's central place.

The municipalities are busy competing to attract businesses. What they're actually doing is trying to establish several central places within the city. They're attracting big buildings and development and taking it away from the downtown area. What we need is one agency to attract and help business in this city, one development office to deal with and set one set of rules and to keep the centre of Toronto and the centre for Ontario alive as a strong business centre and not have a lot of little business centres all over the place. In the present situation, why would North York or Etobicoke support development growth in the centre of the city of Toronto when they're competing for that business?

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The next point I'd like to make is that the changes we're talking about are not that great anyway if you want to talk about amalgamation. My tax bill says that education takes 58% of my taxes; that's the property taxes. Metro is 26% and North York is 15.6%. North York's is a minor amount of money compared with all the other property taxes I'm paying. I don't really think this is a great change. Metro is already spending twice as much as North York on the services for Toronto, so why is taking one third more into Toronto such a big change? It isn't such a big change.

Next, accountability: Because the local mayors and the local councils at present are raising taxes, they are seen as being responsible for the taxes and spending. Meanwhile, Metro and the school boards, who are spending 85% of my taxes, seem more remote and less accountable. I see that if we have a Metro government, we know who our Metro councillor is, they will be much more accountable for the money they spend on the services and maybe they will be more efficient. Evidently, the present Metro council is not that efficient, according to things I hear. I think one level of government would be more visible to the citizens and more accountable in a more direct way.

Next, the costs: There would be costs involved in amalgamation. When businesses change, they always incur costs, and they accept those costs. We have to accept costs of change too. But they do it because there are long-term benefits. I believe there will be long-term benefits in amalgamating Toronto. After all, for 15 years Mayor Lastman has said that we are overgoverned and it's ridiculous to have seven of everything. I'm not quite sure why he's changed his mind after 15 years. Anyway, many of the local councillors agree that we are overgoverned and need changes, and so having one Metro government makes sense from that point of view.

The financial statements about changes have been grossly exaggerated. Even Paul Sutherland in North York was quoted in our local Mirror over the weekend as saying that the 19%, as said by the council to be what the tax rise will be, is a gross exaggeration and is being used by the No side just to scare people. I believe that's true.

Previously the mayors all got together to make a presentation, and they came up with being able to save money on their own. Why weren't they doing it before? Why have they suddenly decided they could save money anyway? Having heard what the financial purser of the city of Toronto said, obviously we need a great deal of change about the city's finances as a whole city and not just as separate entities.

North York is very proud of its services, but when you ask people what they're proud of, they're proud of snowplowing and two garbage collections a week. Is that the most important thing in life, to get your garbage picked up twice a week? In the thing that we have from Mayor Lastman here, he mentions that the most important thing, first of all, is garbage and snowplows, as if that's the biggest thing in life.

Also, mentioning the trustees, a lot of people have said that the appointment of trustees is undemocratic. You have to have some kind of overseeing of this kind of change. Having seen what the school trustees did as far as their severance pay is concerned, I think we need a lot of overseeing done. Also, at one of the meetings Mayor Lastman said the trustees were not interfering with North York's business because North York had nothing to hide and they could conduct their business as normal, so it was not having any impact on the local council.

I would like to see more planning with a strong central government.

The Vice-Chair: Mrs Piggott, may I ask you to wrap up. We've come to the end of your time allotted.

Mrs Piggott: Sorry. I would like to see more planning because I don't think downtown Toronto is a very attractive place. The bottom part of Yonge Street has small, poor buildings, very often dilapidated, and cheap stores. Even poor cities like Cairo and Lima in Peru have elegant cities that draw people to them, so I would like to see more planning.

North York is a typical example of disaster. Although we have a lot of new buildings, it is not a people-friendly place at all. We have a lot of new business, but the Sheppard Centre and the North York centre are disasters. Half the shops are empty. We should have had a better plan.

The Vice-Chair: I'm sorry, I must ask you to conclude. We're well past your time.

Mrs Piggott: All right. I think really I've made my main points. I am in favour of it but there's one point I would like to make: that the government must continue with this process and take in the whole GTA, because only the amalgamation of Toronto is not enough.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much.

BRYAN BEAUCHAMP

The Vice-Chair: I'd like to call on Bryan Beecham, please. Good morning, Mr Beecham, and welcome to the standing committee.

Mr Bryan Beauchamp: Good morning, honourable members of the Ontario Legislature. My forebears are English, so "Beecham" is correct. However, since we immigrated to Canada over 100 years ago, we've returned to the original pronunciation, which is "Beauchamp."

The Vice-Chair: I'm sorry.

Mr Beauchamp: I thought I'd just make the distinction for the record.

I've lived and worked in Toronto for the past 30 years. I've lived in north Toronto, I've lived in Rosedale, I've lived in Forest Hill and I now share a home in North York with my fiancée and six children who are present with us from time to time, some of them being away at university and so on. I'm here representing our family, and nobody else, because its their future in this city that I am deeply concerned about.

My great-great-grandfather was a teacher of bookkeeping and writing at the Toronto Model School in 1868. I have here a bookmark from his dictionary which I inherited that says "Second Division Model School 1872." Many of you will know that the Model School was the teachers' college of its day. He taught a generation of teachers bookkeeping and writing, how to keep accounts and to communicate, and the record shows he was a very effective teacher. We know that he was deeply committed to his profession and determined that his teachers would equip their young scholars to participate fully in the commercial life of the burgeoning, bustling city of which he was so proud.

I know he would be gratified to see his dreams for Toronto's economic success realized, for by any measure this is a prosperous, successful city; indeed an international model, praised far and wide for its excellent quality of life. But I know too that he would be contemptuous of this government's retrogressive plans for reform, however well-intentioned they may be, because he knew, along with his commonsense contemporaries, that if something isn't broken, you don't go about to fix it.

There have been many eloquent and highly-qualified people speak here and in other forums about their concerns, so there is nothing new to say. I have no new evidence to table; there are no new arguments to be made by me today. My earnest plea is that the government ignore the questionable political advice to "hit them hard, hit them fast, ignore the sacred cows, and don't blink."

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I ask this in the name of political decency. I ask this government to demonstrate some respect for the governed, to do more than just listen to the criticisms of its citizens. I ask this government to act upon their concerns by abandoning plans for unnecessary change.

This city is not broken, but it can be broken and very likely will be, if its economic foundations are undermined by downloading the cost of provincial social responsibilities on to municipal governments. Now is not the time, if there ever is, for the Harris government to abandon Tory compassion for the poor, the homeless, the ill and the old. As the honourable members know very well, great cities, indeed great civilizations, are marked by their treatment of the disadvantaged.

Now is the time to slow the pace of change. Now is the time to maintain the cities' financial capacity to continue to be great. Now is the time not to blink, but to see, to see that we're not broken and we don't need fixing.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much. I'll ask Mr Marchese for questions.

Mr Marchese: Mr Beauchamp, this government acknowledges that Toronto is a great city, and when they speak of amalgamation they say they're going to make it better, that's really what they're trying to do. Do you agree with that?

Mr Beauchamp: I'm principally concerned that the city needs the means to make itself better, that it needs the means to continue to be great, and it won't have the means if there is this transfer of wealth that is proposed. The city has to finance expensive social programs to look after people on the margins of this city, people who come here from every nation, people who demonstrate by their presence here that we're perhaps the most tolerant and civilized and accommodating city in the world. That costs money.

If you download the costs of maintaining that quality of life for people on the margins to the municipalities and you upload the cost for education, which is basically easily predictable and forecastable and manageable, then you've created the potential for the city to be devalued. We need to maintain the quality of life in the city, and that costs money. We need that money to flow from taxpayers who, on a progressive basis, provide the funds; not upon property taxpayers whose taxes are not based on income but rather upon assessment.

Mr Marchese: I agree fundamentally with that. I think it's a shameful act of this government. To take education out of property taxes, on the one hand, which in and by itself I don't disagree with, but to then download other social services that should be funded by the provincial government and not the property taxpayer is a very bad act.

I wanted to ask you another question, because a number of people said change is necessary and society is in constant evolution. I agree with that. What a number of people have said and what Golden said in her task force is that to deal with the most difficult problems of economic development, of transportation, environmental issues, regional planning and taxation issues, we need a different kind of body. She argued we need to maintain strong cities, and then take the Metro functions and the regional functions of the other areas outside of Metro and bring them together under a different type of government to deal with the issues I have mentioned.

A lot of people who have studied this agree that type of government and that type of change is perhaps a very good thing to look at. I agree with that. This government has said no to that. In fact they want to amalgamate, which doesn't solve these larger questions, and then they're going to create another service board as another level of bureaucracy to deal with the very issues that Golden identified needed to be dealt with by eliminating Metro in a sense but keeping them as part of a new governing structure to deal with the issues they were dealing with. Do you have a sense of those issues or do you take a position with respect to that?

Mr Beauchamp: Obviously you're saying there's room for improvement, and indeed there is. The kinds of improvements that were recommended in the Golden report and those aspects of the report that were endorsed by a former mayor, David Crombie, appear to be intelligent and progressive, but --

The Vice-Chair: I'm sorry, I must interrupt you. We've exceeded our time. Thank you very much for appearing here today, Mr Beauchamp.

Mr Beauchamp: Thank you very much for the opportunity to do so. I wish you success in your deliberations.

JOHN COMBS

The Vice-Chair: I ask for John Combs, please. Good morning and welcome to the standing committee.

Mr John Combs: I'm John W. Combs. I've been in this city longer than anybody who's come up. I've been here since Hurricane Hazel day in 1942; that was my first day of arrival. I was executive assistant to the president of Don Mills Developments during the early development of Don Mills. I built Bayview Village centre up in the north end. I've lived in North York. I lived in Willowdale, I guess you'd call it, in Hoggs Hollow. I live downtown at 57 Charles Street, which is Charles and Bay.

I was four years president of the Village of Yorkville Association. I was five years president of the Yonge-Bloor-Bay Association, the oldest business organization of its kind in the country. I started the BIA up there, which is now the largest BIA in Canada; $1 million is their budget. I'm vice-chair of TABIA, the Toronto Area Business Improvement Association. I'm only telling you this because I've had a lot of experience with government and politicians.

Listening here, I think what you all ought to do is make every citizen of Ontario a civil servant. Then they'd all be happy. Then you'd take all their money and pay your own taxes and it would be quite a unique place. It would be just like Russia. But that isn't the way we do things.

I'm also on the economic development committee of the city of Toronto representing small businesses and I'm on the assessment reform commission. I've been on both of these about six years, so I've been through all the tax thing.

We're talking about Bill 103 today. I'm still fathoming through Bill 106, which is quite difficult, and I'm sure we'll come up with an answer for that. But Bill 103 -- I'm not really heavy any party, especially NDP. One of your NDP members was a classmate of my oldest son.

I think Mr Harris said what he was going to do before he was elected and he was elected and, damn it, he's doing something. He's the first politician in my life who's followed through on anything in a heavy way, and I give him credit for that. I don't know the man, because I don't know many people from North Bay, but he's had the guts and the fortitude to do it, and I give him credit for that.

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I've seen the area grow. I was here in 1954, as I said, when Metro really came in. I remember Big Daddy Gardiner; he was a tough son of a gun, but he was a leader and he was terrific. He was an outstanding man. I remember the amalgamation from 13 to six, and if you all take the time to go back to the newspaper files, you'll find that exactly everything being said today was said then. It's nothing new. What happened when they amalgamated? The sky didn't fall in; Chicken Little's still up there. Nothing happened. It's a tough thing to do; we know that and we've heard enough on it. The lady before me was excellent. She's been around and she looks at it from a pragmatic standpoint.

I've seen the area grow. I think the 1997-98 amalgamation will improve the overall area of Toronto. As somebody here said earlier, Toronto's only one place, right here. You can be from Scarborough, you can be from Swansea and Mimico or any other damn place, but when you go out of town you're from Toronto. This is the only way, I believe, you're going to have any major tax savings, amalgamating all these. How the heck can you say that reducing the number of jobs you'll need -- that's too bad, you're going to lose some jobs, but you're going to save money. There's no other way you can reduce taxes, other than just reduce them and build a bigger debt. You've got to reduce the number of people. We're overstaffed everywhere.

I don't like negative talk all the time and that's all we've had. I've seen that buffoon John Sewell since he's been on the political stage. He's nothing but an agitator, aggravator. I've never seen John for anything. I know the family and they're just the opposite. His uncle was president and chairman of Coca-Cola and his father's a very prominent lawyer. As I recollect, I think he articled at Borden and Elliot, but I don't see him in the legal directory now. This guy is nothing but trouble everywhere. How you can be led by that -- I've gone to several of the meetings; I've watched the crowd. As the evening goes, on his hands get less and less.

But I'm so tired of the negative. We've got a great future. I'm older; you look like a bunch of kids to me. As I said, Colle was my son's classmate.

By reducing seven governments to one, I defy any of you to defend how the heck that isn't going to reduce payroll costs, plus seven planning departments. I never understood from the first day I came in why there were seven fire departments. Hell, there are no lines in a fire. Why wouldn't there be one department? We did it with the police and we have a hell of a police force, the most up-to-date, modern, terrific police force, though everybody tries to knock it.

Now let's get to taxes for a minute. This is going to help us because we've got to reduce costs to reduce taxes. It doesn't go any other way. That's the simple part of it. I live in an apartment at Bay and Charles. We did a study of eight apartment buildings in the area; 25% to 40% of the rent is for real estate taxes. They are the most done-in people and they're your biggest constituency, and none of you have the guts to go out and tell them and help them. What they're paying in real estate taxes is a crime, where a condo next door pays the equivalent of a single-family residence. That's the way it's done, because I do assessment appeals, I do a lot of expert witness work, I'm an arbitrator. You're going to have to start taking care of these people in the apartments.

I'm not going to get into the tax end of it today, except we are not going to have any reduction in anything unless we reduce what it costs to run government, and I think you can do it. Look, we all know it's fraught with problems when we start out. Hell, nobody makes any change that's easy. All you people have different ideas, but it'll work out and it'll work out for the good of the people, I think.

But don't treat apartment dwellers as not here. They're a very important part of your constituency and a big one, and they're going to get bigger.

To sum up, real estate taxes are paramount in importance, and don't forget it. That's what they've got to come up with. Do you know today that the credit card debt in this country is 93% of the disposable income in this country? Just think of that. That's not mortgages, cars, clubs or anything. Ninety-three per cent of disposable income is credit card debt, so you better start worrying about people.

I represent areas of large small businesses. The numbers: With TABIA we have 25 BIAs and we represent 30,000 or 40,000 businesses in the areas; a big payroll of individual people, a lot of them family businesses. I know what they're complaining about: their taxes. I heard one NDP man say that the Conservative government has not given out their tapes or their data to anybody to see. I can tell you the Liberal government didn't do it and the NDP government didn't do it, because we tried to get --

Mr Marchese: We did so.

Mr Combs: They did not. We didn't get the tapes in Toronto, because I was on the group in Toronto to get them. I'm just telling you. All of you have been at fault in that. You've got to give the information out if you want people to help you. The tapes were not given out.

The Chair: Mr Combs, I'm going to have to ask you to wrap up. You're getting to the end of your allotted time.

Mr Combs: Changes will be possible by amalgamation and strong leadership at the local municipal levels. Everybody wants more politicians and staff, but we just can't pay for it. We've got to cut it down.

I want to thank everybody for listening to this short diatribe. I've been around a long time; I got up this morning, so I'm still involved. That's the way I look at everything. Thank you very much.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr Combs, for coming forward and making your presentation this morning.

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LIZ RYKERT

The Chair: Would Liz Rykert please come forward. Good morning and welcome to the committee.

Ms Liz Rykert: Thank you. I've prepared my notes, and I understand they've just been circulated to you. As a citizen, I'm here to speak to the members of this committee on what I believe to be a mistake on the part of the government. I'm not going to speak to all the things I think are wrong with Bill 103. I believe the 279 presenters, prior to those who presented today, who have opposed the bill have said just about everything there is to say about why this bill is not good for our communities. Instead, I am here to urge you to stop this bill now and return to what we know to be a reasonable and reliable way to reform local government.

I have lived in Toronto my whole life. I grew up here, went to university here and am now employed here. I have contributed hundreds of volunteer hours as an active member of vital communities where I live and work. In all my efforts, both volunteer and employed, I have focused on finding meaningful ways for citizens to seek involvement and build local ownership for change. Local ownership means people are highly motivated to sustain change over time.

Bill 103 and the process by which it is being introduced and is proposed to be enacted removes local control and ownership from the people. As a citizen, this offends me. In a democracy I do not expect to have every policy reflect my own views. I do expect, however, to have the opportunity to have a fair and reasonable debate, to be considered seriously and respected, and to be heard. Parliamentary democracy is not a simple platform to follow. It is a process with rules and tradition.

Bill 103 leaves me unable to exercise my democratic right to control the people who will make profound changes to the structures of what we currently know as Metro Toronto and the six local municipalities. We the people and you the government are not separate entities. We are all one society faced with upholding the laws we as a society have chosen to govern ourselves. How a government which is accountable to the people can make such an acidic assault on what we know as basic democratic principles remains a mystery to me. Perhaps you know deep down that together we must struggle for the right way, which may not necessarily mean the least expensive way. I want to believe this. I hope you will seek inside yourselves for the truth which you know lies clearly before you. No publicly elected representative fears the truth.

As the manager of the electronic strategy for Citizens for Local Democracy, it has been interesting to see politicians, both inside Metro and in the province at large, from all levels of government, join the raging debate online, contribute to the expanding public record and participate fully without fear of retribution. Why? Because they speak the truth. To capture the statements of our elected Tory representatives and hold them up for what they are -- full of falsehood and personal bias and completely lacking in expert concurrence -- means the electorate has a venue from which to make up their own minds, to contribute their own experiences and to work together to find mutually agreeable solutions.

The contempt displayed by this government for the intelligence of its electorate will no doubt come to haunt it. Our online record will be standing by in the years to come to bring transparency to your actions. No amount of glitzy advertising will deflect what the people will see and know to be reality. Your power base is shifting. The truth in a democracy does not need defending.

Online venues are recognized for their capacity to build transparency into social process. With transparency comes public accountability, and it is these two attributes which support citizens to build trusting and meaningful partnerships toward positive change and renewed hope for the future.

This government has used the internet, television, radio, and print media to engage in a very one-sided dialogue with the people to whom it is accountable. Although you have the capacity to create online forums for debate, you have not. You have had the opportunity to join the online forums created by the citizens, but you have not joined these either. You rely on projecting a message, not on engaging in dialogue. In recent meetings meant for dialogue your MPPs were deluged with criticism by the general public.

It was interesting to note, as the government was found in contempt of Parliament for its advertising flyer on One Toronto, that there was quick work to remove the web pages from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. We have copies of all the pages which stood there until the contempt charges where announced. Those of us in the online world could identify your speedy backtracking. Nowhere on your pages are the reasons why Toronto would function better as a megacity. The truth continues to speak for itself.

This government's adoption of new management techniques based on chaos and complexity are not beyond predictable results. I know and use these techniques regularly in my work to build sustaining, vital, self-organizing structures in communities and online to enhance these activities in communities. These approaches count on distributed-capacity building and shared local ownership. They are based on an approach which believes if we link expert knowledge with community wisdom we will all benefit.

I am troubled by this government's one-sided use of the paradigm. The purpose of viewing the world through the lens of complexity is to see with greater insight the natural patterns of connectivity and interdependence in communities, to encourage these patterns, to strengthen meaningful relationships and to seek the solutions which are based on local control. While the use of chaotic change has been imposed through tactics such as mega-week, the respect of the process is stymied with the imposition of rigid solutions based on centralized control.

I suggest to you your approach has backfired. Your use of chaotic provocation has resulted in the revealing of your government's lack of reliable data, underdeveloped plans for transition and the inadequate nature of the proposed solutions. Instead we have seen the emergence of new and healthy alliances, emerging collective understandings of your thin analysis, and profound awakening of the democratic spirit of participation. For this result, I thank you. Never before have I seen such interest in local political process, nor such passion in understanding the need for finding honest, accountable and defensible solutions to renewed local governing structures.

You have a choice here. You could withdraw your proposed solutions. You could create a well-thought-out process which is publicly accountable and adaptable to emerging recommendations and use the power of public participation you have created by your announcements.

As one citizen, Rob Degoeij, told these hearings: "When a government does something so abhorrently wrong, even the most apathetic citizen will speak up."

I also know that as an organization assumes an increasingly rigid structure of control it becomes more vulnerable to destruction.

Truth is not absolute. The online venues, just like well- designed public participation venues in our communities, allow for the evolving nature of dialogue and discussion. Through these forums for discussion and debate we learn from one another and we change our minds based on the evolution of knowledge from the information and experience shared among citizens.

You have an opportunity now, right here, to consider the careful advice of hundreds of citizens and to relook at the measures contained in Bill 103 that deny your electorate their democratic rights. You have the opportunity to stop this bill here in committee. Your timetable is quickly running out. There is no compelling reason to carry on in the face of the ridicule waged at the members of this government. There is time to stop, to rethink, to redraft, and to be inclusive of the ideas brought forward by citizens. You could choose to capture the public interest in your proposed reforms, to work with the people to create reforms that are acceptable and accountable.

The Who Does What panel was an exercise between governments. Citizen participation was absent.

Mae Harman asked in her deputation last Wednesday: "What machine is driving this big rush to make such drastic changes to our governance? If you have a detailed, thought-out plan, why is it such a secret?"

Jane Jacobs noted at a public meeting organized by Citizens for Local Democracy on Feb 17, 1997: "The only remedy for the bills is to discard them, to toss them out. It is not possible to fix them. They are unimprovable. We must see that they are disposed of, and then, in an open, sensible, democratic public debate, begin looking at what should be done and to do it gently."

I implore you, follow the advice of Ms Jacobs. Kill Bill 103, and now. Create an open public process to gently change our local municipal structures in a way which preserves their current strengths, which is inclusive of the people's interests and which respects democratic principals and public accountability.

The Chair: You've exhausted your allotted time, but I want to thank you on behalf of the committee for coming forward this morning.

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ANTHONY PITELLI

The Chair: Would Mr Anthony Pitelli come forward, please. Good morning, Mr Pitelli. Welcome to the committee.

Mr Anthony Pitelli: Good morning; it's actually afternoon now. Let me begin by thanking the committee for allowing me the opportunity to speak here today. I have lived in Toronto all my life and I too love my city. I'll begin by saying that a little government and a little luck are necessary in this life, but only a fool would trust either one of them. We should rely on personal responsibility and promote private liberty. I am in favour of Bill 103. We are overgoverned. Everybody knows that, except the opposition here today.

The mystery of government is not only how it works but how do we make it stop? When can we stop passing laws and raising taxes? There is too much government and it is too costly. In so far as Bill 103 makes for less government, fewer politicians, and fewer bureaucrats, I believe it goes in the right direction.

The closed-minded opponents to amalgamation would have us live in the past and refuse to learn from it. We are drowning in a sea of red tape, regulation and bureaucratic bungling. They spend our hard-earned tax dollars on dubious programs and special interest groups like drunken sailors in an attempt to perpetrate their own self-serving empires. Easy and obvious evidence of this is the so-called referendum, which we consider a sham on which the mayors are spending millions of tax dollars. It makes me wonder what the mayors were doing before fighting amalgamation became their full-time job.

Is this democracy? The mayors decided on the question. They are administering the process. They are actively promoting and funding one side of the issue, which I find particularly deplorable, as I on the other side and people like me are not even allowed to ask for funding. We are told, "Don't even apply." That button on Mr Rosario Marchese's jacket was probably paid for by them.

They are in charge of counting the ballots. Is this democracy? It's a farce, and it's a costly farce. There are stories of ballots being found in garbage cans, ballots being sent to children and dead people. People in Scarborough are afraid to send their ballots in because they have to sign their names. Imagine someone being afraid to vote because the garbage man might not pick up his garbage. It's a joke. All this, and they couldn't even agree on how the referendum would work; we have different referendums in each city.

The opposition to amalgamation has dire warnings for all of us: "Your freedoms will be gone. Your taxes will go up. The sky will fall. Your hair will fall out. The world as we know it will end." The simple truth is that the Metro level already supplies 72% of services and amalgamation only and reasonably adds the remaining 28%. Together with the elimination of duplication and unnecessary politicians and bureaucrats, this move seems very logical to me.

Even the mayors can agree on the fact that we need change. The status quo and those who would have us continue with it seem to be mired in an ideology based on the opposite of being productive. "Wait," they say. "Don't move so fast. Let's do more studies. Let's write more reports. Let's waste more time and of course let's spend more money." These people are on bureaucratic time, which is slower than geological time. Let's wait until the next ice age and maybe the problem will go away, and of course their pensions might kick in at the same time.

To the professional agitators and pesterers who have paraded in front of this committee, I say that good government is hard and the Mike Harris government is on the right track in turning us on the path of respect for the moneys unhappily relinquished by the tired and weary working taxpayer. Remember, there is only one taxpayer and he's fed up. You've plucked the golden goose and he's tired of being plucked.

Property taxes in Toronto went up by 50% from 1986 to 1992, and 60% from 1986 to 1996. I would be very careful about the warnings from the mayors who warn you your taxes will go up who have been doing it all along.

The Harris government was elected to be tax-cutters and streamliners and is so far doing a good job. They are doing what they said they would during the campaign. Why should this change? Where was the outcry from the mayors when Mr Harris kept his promise by cutting his own pay, when he reduced the provincial Legislature from 131 seats to 99 and put a swift and final end to the ridiculously generous pensions past MPPs had voted for themselves? It was astonishing to me to see that the mayors, when faced with the prospect of losing their power and their prestige, could happily and magically meet in joyful collusion and swiftly find the $240 million in tax savings when overburdened property taxpayers have been begging for relief for many years.

Self-preservation must be a mighty tool, for it seems to have made cost-cutting geniuses of all of them and forced them to admit that what the Mike Harris government has been saying all along about the waste and duplication was right.

But of course the mayors and their hangers-on know better than we do. It's always about money -- about somebody else's money. While the Harris government is cutting taxes and streamlining, we have the spectre of a city administrator in Etobicoke being rewarded with a $76,000-a-year pension for spending thousands of tax dollars in strip joints and golf clubs. Quite a system, and all quite tidy and normal according to the councillors in that city.

Remember this about waste, spending, grants to special interest groups and all the so-called services we are so fortunate to receive: When somebody gets something for nothing, somebody else is getting nothing for something. It is the taxpayers, who are continuously paying more and more in a quicksand of taxation only to see this money so easily squandered, who realize it is time for a change. Many of our services are well worth saving, but things need to be much more accountable.

From some of the speakers representing their views here, one might think the present situation is a wonderful Shangri-La, with the different cities cooperating like brothers and sisters and bliss all around. But things are not right and we know this is not true. We need and demand change. The different cities are constantly bickering and competing with one another to the detriment of all. Each has a quagmire of different rules, regulations and bylaws punishing business and stifling investment.

We have out-of-control school boards, which spend money so wildly and so foolishly there must be a spot reserved for them in the Guinness Book of Records; and school trustees, who are highly overpaid and who seem to be anonymous even to the taxpayers they are supposed to represent. For years the mayors have complained about rocketing education costs and, since this represents approximately 6% of their budgets, they have always used that as an excuse for raising taxes. Now they complain about the downloading.

What about the uploading? The provincial government will be taking control of this education spending. This represents $5.4 billion off the property tax bill. They mayors should be thanking Mr Harris for relieving them of this burden, and taxpayers should be glad of this change as the Harris government has promised to gain control over the spending. The cities and school boards have failed to do the job by being unwilling or unable to accept responsibility for it.

Over the last decade enrolment in schools has risen 16%, inflation has risen 40%, but school board spending has shot up 82% and the education portion of our property taxes has increased by a whopping 120%. These figures are scary enough but could be swallowed by parents and hardworking taxpayers if we were turning out better-educated and more-qualified students, but we know this is not the case. In fact, standards haven't even kept pace. Where are they spending this money? Certainly not in the classroom. We are paying more and more and falling further behind. I would ask anyone on the panel here today to explain this to me.

Under the provincial plan, school boards will reduce from 129 to 66. The number of trustees will be reduced from 1,900 down to 700, and their salaries in Toronto will be reduced from $49,000 to $5,000 a year. It's about time. It's about time somebody stepped in to fix this situation, and Mr Harris should be commended for it.

The mayors and their cronies seem to think that more government is always the answer. "Government can and will solve all your problems," they say, "especially municipal government." It's easy to understand why they would say this. They are the government, and they are well paid and well perked. Mr Harris, on the other hand, understands, as most of us working people do, that today government is the problem, invading every aspect of our lives. It is inefficient and wasteful.

This can be seen from a quote from one of the mayors when he understood amalgamation would happen. "Let's spend everything that's not nailed down," was his reply. That's easy for him to say; it's not their money; they didn't sweat for it. This is why we need trustees and a transition team, as stated in Bill 103, to oversee this arrogant disregard for the taxpayers' money.

Apathy runs wild in the electorate. We have 20% to 30% turnouts, as they see government after government at all levels lie to them, break promises and continuously live beyond their means.

The Chair: I'm going to have to ask you to wrap up. You're coming to the end of your allotted time.

Mr Pitelli: One friend of mine was quoting a common feeling about politicians in general: "Why bother? They're all liars and crooks anyway." My reply to him was simple: If you really believe that, and many people do, isn't it at least better to pay only 45 of them rather than the present 106, as it stands now?

The mayors and opponents are shortsighted and using scare tactics is the only weapon they have. They are not afraid that Mr Harris is wrong; they are deathly afraid that Mr Harris is right.

Toronto is a great city and I'm glad to live here. It is a city of caring people and lovely neighbourhoods. I feel a bond with mine, as all others feel about theirs. This will not change with amalgamation. The proposals in Bill 103 will not change that. I care about my city and my community and I hope to leave it a better place. I wish that Mr Harris will follow through to make Toronto and Ontario the best place in the world to live. As it is now, it's the most heavily taxed place in the world to live.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Pitelli, for coming forward and making your presentation to the committee today.

The committee recessed from 1220 to 1535.

NORTH YORK FIGHTS BACK!

The Chair: Good afternoon. Would Robert Richardson and Helen Kennedy please come forward. Welcome to the committee. You have 15 minutes this afternoon to make your presentation.

Mr Robert Richardson: Good afternoon and thank you for this opportunity to speak to you. We speak to you today on behalf of North York Fights Back!, a coalition of community groups, labour unions, social agencies, faith networks and individuals who came together in May 1996 as a result of seeing the devastating impact of the so-called Common Sense Revolution.

The increase in poverty, hunger and homelessness touched many of us personally and compelled us to join forces to fight the attack on the most vulnerable in our community, especially women and children, new Canadians, minority families, the poor, unemployed, seniors and people with disabilities. We organized a historic rally during the Metro Days of Action in which more than 5,000 people from communities across North York marched down Yonge Street to protest the devastating results of the Harris cuts.

Over the past two months, we have been organizing across North York to fight the megacity, mega-board and downloading of social services on to the municipalities. We recognize that Bill 103, the City of Toronto Act, is but one legislative tool that, coupled with Bill 104, the Fewer School Boards Act, and the downloading of funding for social services to the municipalities, will result in the further victimization of the most marginalized in our community and will benefit only the most wealthy.

The provincial government has made it clear from the beginning of their term whose interests they represent. They cut welfare rates, attacked workers' rights and then attacked labour; they dismantled employment equity and laid off thousands of public sector employees. They plan to close hospitals and privatize public agencies. You don't have to look far to see how Bill 103 and the downloading continue this attack on the poor and working people of this province. Bill 103 sets in place a structure that minimizes citizen involvement, maximizes corporate interests and further widens the gap between the rich and the poor.

Bill 103 reduces citizen involvement in the democratic process of government. The Common Sense Revolution did not mention forcing the amalgamation of Metro Toronto. In fact, both Mike Harris and Al Leach were on record as opposed to municipal megacities. It's no wonder people were shocked by Bill 103, shocked that it went against any intelligent recommendations that have been made over the past 10 years, shocked that the citizens would not be consulted before the bill was drafted, and shocked that 2.3 million people could be so utterly disregarded in what was supposed to be a democracy.

This government stated unequivocally that they do not need to listen to the thousands and thousands of people who are opposed to the forced amalgamation of Toronto. When asked if he would honour the results of the referendum on March 3, Al Leach, in one of the most arrogant statements ever made by a government minister, said, "Uh, let me think about that. No."

The appointment of trustees and the transition team exemplifies how this government wants to shut the door on citizen involvement. Even though we did not elect them, trustees and the transition team can usurp the powers of elected municipal politicians. Bill 103 renders them immune from accountability. In fact, the trustees and the transition team cannot be held accountable for any actions they may take, no matter how damaging the consequences of their actions may be.

Helen Kennedy: What role does this government want a citizen to play in the new city of Toronto? It's been said that the Tories are governing Ontario like they would a corporation. Mike Harris and this Tory government are acting like they are the corporate board of directors of this province. They are intent on running Queen's Park like Matthew Barrett runs the Bank of Montreal. Citizens become annoying things that you have to put up with from time to time, but they're really only "special interest groups."

Bill 103 imposes a structure that makes citizen involvement more remote. A municipal politician will not be focused on local issues, but on the mega-problems associated with a mega-bureaucracy. Bill 103 will replace our democratically elected municipal council, in part by appointed neighbourhood committees. Of course, you'd have to be the "right" kind of citizen -- pun intended -- to get appointed. Citizens who are concerned about social justice will have as much chance of being appointed to the neighbourhood committee as they would of being appointed to the board of directors of the Bank of Montreal.

The amalgamation and downloading agenda of this government sets the stage for massive contracting-out and privatization of public services. Premier Harris has confirmed that there will be jobs lost as a result of the amalgamation. What jobs survive will be under intense pressure to be contracted out and/or privatized. Full-time, secure public sector jobs will be replaced by part-time, minimum wage contract jobs.

We'd like to let this government know that decent jobs with decent wages and benefits are essential ingredients for the health of our community. Jobs mean food, clothing, shelter and post-secondary education. Jobs mean parents can provide for their children, pay for school trips, feel good about their contribution to society. Jobs mean the survival of our community. Without these jobs, our neighbours suffer and our community suffers.

North York Fights Back! is committed to the fight for fully funded, quality public services in our community. We do not support the downloading of public services to private interests. Bill 103 and the downloading legislation that is pending will lead to the commodification of human services for the children, the youth and the seniors in our community. Those most vulnerable, people who are sick and people with disabilities, will suffer the most.

The effect of transferring the care of people to private interests devalues the people who most deserve our care: our parents, our children and youth. To profit from delivery of human services, one needs to cut salaries, cut care, cut food, cut staff, or cut training. Community members cannot be used as commodities to fatten the wallets of local businesses.

The Chair: Excuse me. I have to allow members an opportunity for three minutes to go vote. At the end of the paragraph, we can maybe stop and we'll come back in a few minutes. I apologize for the interruption. We'll recess until after the vote.

The committee recessed from 1541 to 1603.

The Chair: Welcome back. Ms Kennedy, if you could carry on with the presentation.

Helen Kennedy: I understand I now have 15 more minutes, right?

The Chair: Not quite.

Helen Kennedy: The debate both for and against the megacity has been waged on the basis of whether you believe property taxes will decrease by 10% or increase by 20% to 30%. This debate is flawed, though, because it does not recognize the essential role the government should play in the provision of social services, nor does it acknowledge the regressive nature of the property tax system. Human services like welfare, housing, child care and health care should not be funded through the property tax system. In fact, North York Fights Back! believes we should work towards phasing out the regressive property tax system in favour of progressive tax reform based on ability to pay.

We also want to let you know that our experience is that the fight back is growing at a phenomenal pace across Metro Toronto. Thousands and thousands of people are getting involved in the fight back against this Bill 103 and the downloading. I want to draw your attention to some of these groups outside the city of Toronto who are building solid opposition to the corporate-centred policies of this provincial government. Last week this committee heard a presentation from York Fights Back, this morning you heard from the East York Action Committee, and tonight you'll hear from Etobicoke Takes a Stand. A new group has just formed in Scarborough called Save Our Scarborough. All of these groups are community/labour coalitions who are standing up in communities across Metro to fight back against the corporate interests that are running this province.

North York Fights Back! wants to add our voice to the growing thousands of people in Metro and across this province who are organizing, educating and resisting and who are united in opposition to Bill 103. We need fully funded quality public services and full employment in our communities. We are committed to building communities based on civic responsibility and fulfilling collective needs.

Mr Richardson: While Bill 103 is from both sides being fought on the basis of the cost to the taxpayer, it is our contention that you can't place a cost on civic community responsibility. We must look at which structures best support citizens in need. The creation of a megacity, as proposed in Bill 103, is not it.

Mrs Munro: Thank you very much for being here today. I wondered if you'd comment on an idea that has come to us through these hearings in that many people have come before us and told us that the status quo, the way in which Toronto is organized right now, is not appropriate. I just wondered if you could tell us what your response to the whole issue of the status quo is.

Helen Kennedy: We're not opposed to change. We want to make that very clear. There are certainly issues within the greater Toronto area that need to be addressed. I think what we would support is a consultative process that looks at the inequities across the GTA and looks at the structures that would be most beneficial to building communities that are based on quality services and public services and job creation.

Mrs Munro: By that, are you suggesting then that you are in favour of the kind of two-tiered system we have right now with the cities and Metro council? Do you support the organization as it currently exists?

Mr Richardson: I think that in looking at that particular question, we don't necessarily support the organization as it exists today, and we have looked at other models such as the creation of a greater Toronto area council, which may or may not have elected representatives on it, but maintaining a strong local governance and a size that is reasonable and which can be controlled by the communities it serves.

I think also that what's key in terms of looking at structural change is looking at removing the regressive nature of the tax base within the municipalities of Ontario, and going into Bill 104 and the so-called money bills that will be coming down after it, when you're looking at removing education from the property tax base, I think that's a good first step. However, the subsequent downloading of social services to the municipal tax base is pushing us two steps backwards.

Mrs Munro: You mention that you would support some kind of structural change that would allow the recognition of communities, and at the same time you certainly recognize too the need for some kind of GTA organization, whatever form that takes. I'm just wondering how you see this being balanced in terms of community representation. The minister has talked about each of the councillors being part of a community group -- that is, an elected community group -- so obviously their mandate would be to look at those very specific local community issues. Do you see that as a group that then could represent you in the larger Toronto context?

Helen Kennedy: The problem with the community councils, I think they're called in the bill, is that it would reduce the representation to one councillor for 50,000 people, which is about the size of -- Prince Edward Island? North Bay. One of those things. What it does is take away the accessibility of that local councillor.

I think the other issue is that you recognized the need for neighbourhood committees, but you made those appointed committees. If you need neighbourhood committees, we have those now; they're called local councils.

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Mrs Munro: I want to make a distinction here between the elected councillor, who is part of that community group, as opposed to neighbourhood, which is the volunteer structure you're talking about.

I want to go back to this issue. You talk about the accessibility and the fear you have that 45 people will not be sufficient to represent your views. My question then is, if we recognize the need to have some kind of GTA coordination, how many people do you think the whole area should have, given the issue of accessibility?

Helen Kennedy: I don't think we're talking about numbers of people; we're talking about coordination. How can you elect a local councillor to a local government and then on top of that coordinate the services across the GTA? Bill 103 doesn't even address that kind of coordination; it just deals with inside Metro Toronto.

Mrs Munro: I understand that. My question really comes from the fact that you've identified, as many people have, the need to have Toronto in the context of a GTA because we're looking at how Toronto can best be represented in that bigger context. That's why I asked you the question in terms of the status quo, the kind of governance structure we have now, or whether you support moving to something such as the community of 45 people.

Helen Kennedy: The other problem with the council of 45 people is that we know what that means. We are an active group in North York, and the city of Toronto, for example, has had a lot of community activists for many years. The result is that they have a lot more input on their council. In North York, if you go to 1 to 50,000 as the representative number, we know it's going to be the party machines that come in. It will be not where community activists go to represent the people in their community; it will be where the parties come in and have their candidates running because the cost will be prohibitive for people to run. I'm sure that's what you all want, but that's not what the people want. That's very clearly the message we're getting from our community.

The Chair: We've come to the end of the time. Thank you both for coming forward to make your presentation today.

AMALGAMATED TRANSIT UNION, LOCAL 113

The Chair: Would Art Patrick please come forward. Good afternoon, Mr Patrick, and welcome to the committee. You have 15 minutes to make a presentation.

Mr Art Patrick: Members of the committee, thank you for allowing us to appear here. We wish the same sort of thing had taken place on some of the other bills earlier in the session.

Local 113 of the Amalgamated Transit Union represents a large majority of the people who operate Toronto's public transit system, which is the second-largest system in North America, behind New York's. It is also one of the safest public transit systems anywhere except for the one tragic subway accident two years ago, which I will return to in a few minutes. The TTC has always been known for its remarkable passenger safety record. I hope you will allow ATU members to take their rightful credit for this achievement. After all, we operate and maintain the vehicles, albeit within the rules and budgets established by management.

We have been around as a local union for nearly 100 years, so we have witnessed a century of evolution in public transit in Metro Toronto. No one, and we mean no one, knows more than we do about the realities of public transportation in Metro Toronto and the transit needs of its residents, and we have some deep concerns about the potential effects of Bill 103 on Toronto's transit system.

Our first concern is with a glaring omission in Bill 103. Unlike section 7 of the current Metro act, there is no section in Bill 103 that establishes the TTC as Toronto's transit authority, separate and apart from the council. As this bill now reads, the TTC would become a mere department of municipal government. You have made exceptions for Toronto Hydro and the police services board -- sections 6 and 7 of Bill 103 say these agencies will remain separate from the council -- but there is no exception for the TTC.

In the case of our electricity systems and police services, there are good and obvious reasons for keeping them at arm's length from the municipal government: These vital services must be above politics as much as humanly possible; they should not be subject to deal-making, vote-trading and buck-passing; and they must of course be publicly accountable in the fullest sense but at the same time be non-political. But these same reasons also apply to public transit, which is why the Toronto Transit Commission was established in the first place. Transit planning and service decisions should not be dictated by the most vocal constituents or the most persistent politicians.

There is irrefutable evidence that the traditional separation of Metro's public transit services from the uncertainties of daily government has always been right up to the present day; it works extremely well. The TTC is the most economically efficient urban transit system in North America, public or private. Direct customer revenues pay almost 80% of the system's costs, the highest ratio of revenue-to-costs on the continent. Our total cost per rider, at $1.87, is not quite the lowest. Montreal beats us by a penny. Their cost per rider is $1.86, but Montreal's subsidy per rider is 95 cents, which is more than twice Toronto's at 43 cents.

There are many other facts and statistics to support the claim that whatever its shortcomings may be, the TTC is one of the world's safest and most efficient public transit systems, the guardian of nearly $10 billion in public assets paid for over the years by the people of Metro Toronto, with a lot of help from the rest of the province as well. The government is very unwise to be toying with something that is already working so well, especially a public service whose efficiency and reliable operation is critical to the region's economic health and the prosperity of the whole province.

The omission of a separate public agency for transit in Bill 103 is either an oversight on the part of the government or it is deliberate. If it is an oversight, it should be corrected without delay. We already went through this debate in 1992 when some Metro councillors proposed making the TTC a department of Metro. They were unsuccessful because this idea was wrong then and it's still wrong now. But don't take my word for it; listen to what Municipal Affairs Minister Al Leach said at the time on this issue, when he was the TTC's chief general manager. I'm quoting the October 3, 1992, Toronto Star article which is attached to our presentation:

"`Being a department of Metro is simply not in the best interests of transit or the employees,' he said.... Leach said it might be more suitable for the TTC to take over Metro. `We're bigger, and our managers could probably handle Metro on the side while they're resting.' He said past studies have always concluded that it's wise to keep transit management one step removed from the pressures of day-to-day politics."

Al Leach was dead-on when he said that, and we cannot think of anything that has essentially changed in the last four years that would cause him to change his mind on this issue. In fact, he probably still believes what he said back then, and I urge you to ask him if he does. If I'm wrong and he says he no longer believes what he said in 1992, maybe he's come down with the same mysterious disease as the Premier, who says he no longer believes what he told the people of Fergus in 1994 when he spoke out against the same idea of municipal amalgamation that he is now imposing on Toronto.

If, however, this omission in Bill 103 was deliberate, we can only conclude that the reason is to make it easy to privatize and deregulate public transit in Toronto. I don't want to believe this interpretation, but it is consistent with the government's downloading of all public transit costs to municipal governments. By creating intolerable pressures on transit funding and by giving Toronto council direct control over the public transit system, privatization will be made easier and more attractive to politicians, who will not want to be blamed for the inevitable rise in costs and service cuts that will result from the withdrawal of provincial government support for the TTC. As bad as this impact will be on the TTC, it will be even worse everywhere else in the province. Cities like Hamilton, London and Thunder Bay, to name just three, will be very severely impacted and their transit systems will deteriorate faster than Toronto's, whether they are eventually privatized or not.

If encouraging the privatization of public transit is the hidden meaning of this omission in Bill 103, which we think it is, the government will be making a huge mistake for which it will be cursed by everyone in the future, with the exception of those few who end up making fortunes in the private transit business.

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To use a phrase that Conservatives are fond of, there is no free lunch when it comes to safe, reliable public transit. You really do get what you pay for. The more you squeeze money out of the transit system, the less safe it becomes. Complex machinery and systems require a great deal of maintenance. There is simply no way around this. Even the Conservative government cannot defeat the laws of nature through privatization and deregulation. If you don't spend the time and money on maintenance, things break down, no matter how efficient you may be otherwise.

To vividly illustrate this point, let me return to the tragic subway crash of 1995. It was big news when it happened. Many people didn't remember that it was finally established by an exhaustive inquiry that this crash was the direct result of cuts in funding that led to the decrease in inspections and reduced maintenance standards. Yes, there was a degree of human error involved, but the inquiry concluded that if proper maintenance had been done the crash would not have happened, people would not have died and the TTC would not have spent millions in compensation, repairs and legal costs. If there was a false economy, this was it.

Maintenance is not an interesting topic to most people and probably doesn't win many votes, so politicians tend to ignore it as an issue. Yet when it comes to public safety it is the issue. Look at all the tires flying off all the trucks these days. Is there a connection between unsafe trucks and the deregulation of the trucking industry a few years back? Of course there is, and to deny this would be pointless. When the survival and profitability of a newly privatized business depends on keeping costs down, maintenance and environmental considerations are the first costs to be sacrificed. Many observers of the trucking industry have pointed this out and blame deregulation for the incredible jump in trucking accidents over the last 10 years.

You can see why people are uneasy when it looks like the government is planning to deregulate transit. You have already deregulated inter-regional bus service, as of 1998, so I can predict with sadness that we will be reading about an unusual increase in bus crashes on the highways starting early in the next decade. There is still time to back out of this mistake, but if you won't, please don't make this same grave error with municipal transit.

Apart from safety, deregulation and privatization of transit will also result in reduction or elimination of service on unprofitable routes. The people who live on these routes will have no other choice but to travel in their cars. Ironically, those who now travel in their cars and do not take the TTC will be the biggest losers. If service deterioration and fare increases cause just 10% of those who now take the TTC to turn to the car, the number of cars on Toronto's streets, in addition to the ones already there every weekday, would stretch from Queen's Park down University Avenue on to the Gardiner, on to the Queen Elizabeth Way, through Oakville, Hamilton, St Catharines and Niagara Falls, over the Rainbow Bridge and into downtown Buffalo. It's simply not possible to accommodate that many more cars in this city. There are not enough roads and not nearly enough parking. The traffic jams would be intolerable and the increase in pollution would be sickening.

A less desirable transit system would also have a very negative impact on tourism, which is one of Toronto's best industries. The new trade centre will suffer and the quality of life generally would diminish as more cars choke our highways and neighbourhoods.

Yet this is where your policies are leading. By downloading the entire cost of public transit to municipalities, you are making higher fares, less service, poorer maintenance and fewer riders inevitable. This is precisely why all other industrial countries, including the United States, fund public transit from all three levels of government. On this issue, the government of Ontario is completely out of step with the entire rest of the world, which seems to understand the economic and environmental importance of public transit.

I now want to turn to the issue of Toronto's amalgamation and its potential effect on transit service. You may think the ATU should have no problem with amalgamation because we operate a single Metro-wide system, not a collection of smaller systems. Ironically, public transit privatization could easily result in a patchwork system of transit providers that becomes very complex to manage efficiently, as has happened in London, England. We all know about London, England. Just because some services there are better provided centrally, that doesn't mean smaller governments are not useful when it comes to those services.

In the case of public transit in Toronto, our union often sees what a difference local government can make. The most noticeable effect is the interest local councillors take in transit issues that affect their constituents, even though it is Metro council's formal jurisdiction. The fact is, Metro councillors do not have the time to deal adequately with service issues that constantly arise in a region as large and spread out as Metro. Because of this, local councillors often attend TTC meetings with ratepayers to make presentations for service adjustments, such as new stops in underserviced neighbourhoods, community buses and other issues. Moreover, it was an alliance of local city councils that successfully opposed the TTC's becoming an operational department of Metro in 1992. They, like we, saw the dangers of politicizing public transit.

In summary, Bill 103, combined with the downloading of all transit funding to municipalities, will inevitably lead to a deterioration of public transit in Toronto. We defy the government to show how this would not happen. Let me repeat that there is no free lunch when it comes to safe, reliable, quality transit that people will support and use. The government must pay attention to what the rest of the world is doing to promote public transit and not end up destroying, by neglect and underfunding, what is widely acknowledged to be one of the finest urban transit systems in the world.

If the three horsemen of Metro's apocalypse -- Harris, Johnson and Eves -- persist in ignoring the voice of the people, they'll end up with a political party like the one left by fellow Tory Brian Mulroney, whose own schemes for privatization, deregulation and downloading of funding were disastrous political experiments from which we may never fully recover.

Take a transfer and turn back while you can. We are certainly not in favour of Bill 103 in the format it's currently in.

Can I just make one comment as a citizen of North York?

The Chair: Surely.

Mr Patrick: When it is incorporated, if this goes through, and it seems it's going to be steamrolled through, hopefully there will be enough resistance that the government will listen.

I've lived in North York for 33 years; own my home. Let me tell you something: I don't mind paying an extra dollar or two in North York for the services we get. As I see it, amalgamation of these cities is going to take my right away to have twice-a-week garbage collections and summer pickups on Wednesdays for trash. That's just one small point. Hydro, for instance, is cheaper in North York. If we're going to be amalgamated, we could end up sharing the burden of the costs of older systems such as Toronto proper. Each location has to remain as an independent government for the purposes of the citizens who have supported their own local councils over the years.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr Patrick, for coming forward and making your presentation today. You've exhausted your allotted time, but I want to thank you on behalf of the committee.

PETER PROSZANSKI

The Chair: Peter Proszanski, please. Good afternoon, sir. Welcome to the committee. You have 10 minutes to make your presentation.

Mr Peter Proszanski: I am Peter Proszanski, and I'm appearing before you as a citizen of the city of Scarborough and as a resident of the community of West Hill.

I'm attending the hearings today to bring forth my personal point of view and to advise the committee why I feel it is time to proceed with amalgamation. I'll briefly touch upon some of the reasons I feel the creation of one municipality for the Metropolitan Toronto area is a positive move. I'll also briefly discuss what is occurring in my community, that being the city of Scarborough, with respect to the manner in which our referendum, or public opinion poll, is being undertaken.

With respect to the unification of Metropolitan Toronto into one city, it would seem to me that there are many reasons for so doing. As I understand it, under our current system of local government, many of the services that are currently being provided to the residents of Metropolitan Toronto are being delivered by the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto or our regional government. Services such as transportation, police, water and sewer treatment, ambulance and welfare fall under the responsibility of the current Metropolitan government.

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I note that the Toronto Star in its editorial of February 22 indicated that 72% of the services delivered to us are delivered by the Metro government. This of course makes you wonder why the remaining 28% of services cannot be provided to us by a single governmental entity. The editorial in the Toronto Star clearly and succinctly provided compelling reasons, in my opinion, for the amalgamation of Toronto, East York, York, Etobicoke, North York and Scarborough into one government.

The other reason I feel amalgamation should be supported is that it will have, or should have, the effect of saving the beleaguered taxpayers tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars. I would anticipate that some of these savings would be realized from the avoidance of duplication in the delivery of services and the more cost-effective delivery of such services. Let there be no doubt that by unifying our city there will be numerous costs. However, there will also be cost savings that I feel will strongly outweigh the costs at least in the medium if not the short term.

Also, by unifying Metropolitan Toronto, we should have more efficient government and more uniform regulations with one bureaucracy applying the same rules across the board. Uniform administration and regulation can only better serve the citizenry and make Toronto more appealing for investment.

The benefits of further savings that are realized from the efficiencies of restructuring government should be realized quickly. This is exactly what has transpired in the private sector over the last several years. Many companies have been forced to restructure their operations to ensure their survival. In effect, it has just taken our governments a little longer to realize the importance of operating efficiently.

It is fair to say that even the mayors of the cities that make up Metropolitan Toronto acknowledge that the system needs to be fixed. Although the proposals to proceed with a new city of Toronto may not please everybody, it is certainly undeniable that it is high time a change occur. The issues pertaining to local government have been studied to death. This is evidenced by the volume of reports that have been produced over the years. It is now time to act. It is for this reason that I encourage this committee to support Bill 103. I urge the committee not to support the status quo, which will only harm the Toronto area in the long run. I think everybody agrees the status quo needs to be changed.

Finally, I'd like to briefly discuss what appears to be happening in my community with respect to the so-called referendum, or public opinion poll, that is being conducted by the city of Scarborough. I am not a big supporter of conducting referenda and public opinion polls, as I believe that we pay our elected officials at all levels to make decisions, including those that are difficult and appear to be unpopular. The concept of requesting a referendum whenever a difficult decision is required to be made is not the way to govern our society.

In addition to the unwise use of taxpayers' money, the referendum process in Scarborough has many flaws. My concerns about the referendum process that is taking place are even more exacerbated when I examine the ballot that was delivered to my household and see that I am required to sign and note my address on the ballot. It is paramount in any democratic society that there be a secret ballot. I will not delve into the theory or rationale behind that, but I think it's well accepted.

What further troubles me is what was included with the ballot. Upon my opening the envelope that included the ballot, a letter from the mayor could be found. This letter provides facts allegedly on the amalgamation and reasons why not to support the amalgamation. In addition, a professionally produced brochure by the city of Scarborough provided further information as to why I should vote No in the referendum.

If the city of Scarborough felt so compelled to enclose information with its ballot, it should have at least provided a similar opportunity for the other side of this debate to enclose information as well. Although I do not support the dissemination of any information with a ballot, at least by allowing both sides of the debate to enclose information with the ballot the process established by the city of Scarborough may have had some legitimacy. As it currently stands, it would appear that the referendum, or public opinion poll, in Scarborough lacks all legitimacy, even that of an unscientific public opinion poll.

As late as Friday it was reported by the local cable news in Scarborough that the city clerk would now be accepting ballots that have not been signed. This causes me great concern with respect to the potential for abuse. Clearly the haphazard manner in which this public opinion poll or referendum is being undertaken is highly questionable. In fact, I suspect that a show of hands at any local Scarborough mall would be a no more illegitimate expression of public opinion.

I urge this government to proceed with the amalgamation so that we can guarantee continued prosperity for the city of Toronto as we approach the turn of the century.

The Chair: Thank you very much. We've got a little more than two minutes for questions.

Mr Sergio: Thank you for coming down to make a presentation to our committee, Mr Proszanski. I have a couple of questions if we have the time. You did mention that this can save tens and perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars. How much do you think we are going to save with respect to the megacity implementation if it's implemented as it has been proposed?

Mr Proszanski: I'm not in a position to provide you with any details of that, but I think government restructuring and private sector restructuring has the effect in the long term of saving moneys.

Mr Sergio: I'm sorry; you don't want to provide details or you don't have details?

Mr Proszanski: I'm not in a position to provide you with the details. I'm here as a citizen. I'm providing you with the fact that I think government restructuring and private sector restructuring in the long term has or should have the ability to save money. That's why I'm supporting the amalgamation.

Mr Sergio: Our problem is this: that the government has not provided us with any details, facts, figures, statistics, data, anything at all on which we could base that indeed maybe by 2000 or 2001, according to the Premier and the Minister of Finance, we could see this so-called 10% tax reduction. From our information, we won't get this reduction. If the government had this information, why wouldn't the government provide you, provide us and the people with that information to support its thesis?

Mr Proszanski: As I said, I'm not in a position to provide you with that information. As a general rule of thumb, restructuring and operating more efficiently has the ability to save money.

Mr Sergio: How do you feel about the downloading of other services on to the local municipalities?

Mr Proszanski: I think it should be looked at very carefully. I think the government should look at it very carefully and not overdownload.

Mr Sergio: Would you feel more comfortable if the government were to stop proceeding with the bill as it is now and say: "We're getting a lot of flak here from a lot of people, and evidently the downloading is stirring up a lot of people out there. Let's stop, let's look at it, and then we'll come back with some other format"?

Mr Proszanski: My understanding is that this bill is not a bill to deal with downloading. I'm just aware that there have been reports in existence about amalgamating and operating cities more efficiently since I moved to Toronto over 10 years ago and something needs to be done.

Mr Sergio: I appreciate that. Every other study, including the Crombie report, the Trimmer report and the Golden report, at least received considerable input, if not public; this one here did not. It came out from the ministry like thunder in a clear sky. What do you say to that, that nobody has had any input as to the idea of this megacity all of a sudden here?

Mr Proszanski: The input is being achieved with this committee. There are public meetings in my community. We've had two or three public meetings to provide input to our MPPs. Everybody here seems to be accessible. I think there is lots of public input.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr Sergio. We've gone beyond our time. Thank you, Mr Proszanski, for coming forward and making your presentation.

MARY LOU DICKINSON

The Chair: Would Mary Lou Dickinson please come forward. Good afternoon, and welcome to the committee. You have 10 minutes to make a presentation.

Ms Mary Lou Dickinson: I'm a citizen of the city of Toronto. I want to make one comment first. I understand that downloading isn't part of Bill 103, but I'd like to say something. I feel strongly about it, and I feel it is connected to the issue of amalgamation, although not in this bill. I'm aghast at the prospect of the downloading of social services and the impact this would have.

My friend and colleague tells me that when her parents came to Toronto as young immigrants there was no infrastructure and no social services, and that in their 80s, as they watch the city they helped build, they fear they will leave it as they found it, a mean city, for their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, all of whom are residents of the city of Toronto.

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In any case, now I'll get to what I came to say around Bill 103 and the process.

A long time ago I came from a very small town in what was then the very far north; it's not so far north now, but it is north of North Bay. It took a while to understand a city and how to develop community in a large place. I had been in Montreal for a while as a student so I knew how university communities develop, but I found coming to a city to live somewhat overwhelming, and I found Toronto overwhelming. But over time, I found that at the heart of cities that work is something that's shared by small and large places: the existence of communities which are of a size that people can identify with them and care about others in them. That seemed to be a way of connecting with Toronto.

There is history to the existing cities here and we attach our own roots to these histories. I have intentionally lived and worked within the boundaries of the city of Toronto for over 35 years. That place has meaning to me and that size is manageable. I've worn a number of different hats. I don't know that it's relevant, but at one time I indexed the bylaws of the city of Toronto; the one I remember is that no cows were allowed on Yonge Street even into the 1980s. That makes me feel attached somehow to the city, having had that involvement as well.

In any case, there are political structures which are responsible through elections, which are accessible and rooted in a common history and evolving shared values. There is a soul to my community. I go downtown to St Lawrence Market. I go to a downtown church. I live in north Toronto. I've lived in the Annex. I work downtown. There is a soul, a spiritual reality, and amalgamation is like a bulldozer running roughshod over this landscape.

I guess you can tell by now that I feel very strongly about Bill 103 and amalgamation. I am convinced that, as it's presently conceived, it will erode the sense of community so important to healthy cities. The existing cities and borough within the Metropolitan area work. There's undoubtedly a need for regional coordination, but not a need to destroy the vibrant local structures we now have.

There's undoubtedly a need for change and I'm not afraid of change, but there's a need for respectful change, change respectful of the best of what exists and that builds on the participation and consensus of the citizenry. We now have, on the whole, a safe and healthy place to live. I for one, and I hear this echoed across this metropolitan area, would welcome the chance to enter into a process that would allow discussion on change and on ways to strengthen community.

This process doesn't allow that. The minister has already said he's not going to pay attention, and I notice some people over there talking and not paying attention to me. I was at the meeting of the Conservative member last week in my local area where every question was greeted, not with the openness of dialogue, but with rhetoric to convince that the Conservative government knows what's best for us. The consultation is a sham, so what I feel most strongly about right now is the loss of democracy.

If a man said to his wife, "You should be able to feed this family of four on X number of dollars," and she said, "I can't," but she kept on trying because she had no other choice, and he then said, "Get a job, you're lazy," and she said, "The children are only babies," and he said, "Get a job," and wouldn't enter into dialogue or listen to any suggestions or alternatives around how this unit functioned and didn't engage in communication which respected both parties, then when he didn't like what they ate he blamed her, I think we'd know what to call that. We'd call it abuse. I see this process as being about power and control, and both bill and process is a flagrant abuse of power, quite frankly.

I resent having my voice and those of my fellow citizens silenced by making my elected representatives subservient to a board of trustees, then a transition team with powers only a dictatorship would sanction. My father, who was an ardent Conservative all his life until he died around 20 years ago, went to war to preserve democracy. I can recall the three years he was gone and the letters he wrote about why. He's probably rolling over in his grave at what's happening in Ontario. He raised his children with that phrase from Churchill, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all others," the sort of phrase that makes thoughtful children think, what does that mean? You remember this kind of phrase and gradually understand how messy democracy is but how anything else would erode freedom.

I heard at my local member's meeting last week his statement that "This is Canada," as if the mere utterance of such words would remind people that nothing that would offend democracy could happen here, that we were safe if we believed that simply by saying we're in Canada, we're safe. Nothing really could be further from the truth. It's precisely because we have freedom that we must watch vigilantly and guard against infringing it. No one is immune to abuse of power; not me, not you. Our history has examples of gross injustice. To forget or deny how vulnerable freedom is is very dangerous. I wonder why our local newspapers aren't crying out about that every day.

I am here to say it's critical that you and the government hear and attend to the message that process matters, that continued delivery of services matters, that community matters in cities as well as in towns; and also that in claiming moral ownership to fiscal responsibility, you do me and my colleagues who oppose this bill and are concerned about the process an injustice. Future generations are our legacy also. The health and safety and financial stability of our communities are precisely what we feel are at stake.

My recommendation is, restore democracy. I don't call this a consultation. What you intend to do is a foregone conclusion. I would suggest instead that you withdraw Bill 103. I know you have endless reports and studies; I've heard the phrase "studied to death." I don't know that they've ever been consolidated. I think they need to be given to the people, and we need to be given the responsibility to discuss our local structures and how we're governed and the opportunity to arrive at consensus, working with everybody, with you and everyone.

I challenge the minister and this government to preserve our tradition of democratic consultation and to help us build healthier communities, not to silence our voices and erode our cities and our services. If there are those in the Conservative government who are willing or able to see that democracy is being eroded by this process, and if they can't convince their colleagues, I challenge them to cross the floor.

Mr Tony Silipo (Dovercourt): Thank you very much, Ms Dickinson. I want to put a proposition to you and get your response. It seems to me that the government has a bit of a dilemma because they are realizing the error of their ways, although we haven't heard that admission yet, and I think they need a way out of this. That's one alternative. The other is that they will just continue to ram this thing through, knowing they will pay a political price for it. Either they've been convinced by the arguments on the merit or they are going to be convinced by the arguments because they know they'll pay a political price if they persist in their actions.

It seems to me that the referendum gives them a useful way out. It gives them a way out, if, as we expect, people will vote against the megacity, in saying: "Then we are prepared to listen to the people. We're prepared to pause, take a look at what the alternatives might be, engage people in a real discussion and go on from there." Does that sound to you like one way the government could find a way out of this mess?

Ms Dickinson: It sounds like a recommendation that could be made. I don't think there is any loss -- I suppose there is. I was going to say I don't think there is a loss of face in withdrawing something that you recognize has perhaps been arrived at in too much haste.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms Dickinson, for coming forward.

OSCAR JOHVICAS

The Chair: Would Oscar Johvicas please come forward. Good afternoon, sir. Welcome to the committee.

Mr Oscar Johvicas: Mr Chairman and committee members, I want to thank you for the opportunity of speaking to you today on Bill 103, An Act to replace the seven existing governments of Metropolitan Toronto by incorporating a new municipality to be known as the city of Toronto. My name is Oscar Johvicas and I am secretary-treasurer of our small family business, Co-Mar Management Services Inc. We have our offices in downtown Toronto, where we publish an international trade fairs and conferences directory, as well as being the Canadian representative for Hannover Trade Fairs of Hanover, Germany. As the Canadian representative we promote to Canadian manufacturers, associations and professionals the advantages of either exhibiting at or visiting the world-class trade fairs which occur at the world's biggest trade fair grounds in Hanover, Germany, and where Expo 2000 will occur in that year.

Toronto is internationally known as Canada's pre-eminent city, the centre of Canada's financial, business, entertainment and communications networks. My apologies to Mayor Mel Lastman, but people outside Canada do not know there is a North York, nor an East York, Etobicoke, Scarborough etc. Indeed, companies from Metro Toronto that promote their products and services outside Canada are well advised to promote themselves as Toronto-based companies, including a Toronto address.

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When it comes to business development, it is much more economic, efficient and rational for Toronto to market itself internationally as a unified business destination instead of the current city of Toronto and five internationally unknown municipalities, each competing against each other. I've witnessed that at the trade fairs in Hanover, by the way.

That is the whole point of this bill: to amalgamate seven competing, ineffective municipalities into one strong, unified, effective municipality, the new city of Toronto. Why do we need seven planning and development departments competing against each other, seven parks and recreation departments, seven human resources departments, six health departments and six fire departments? Common sense tells you that the amalgamation of these departments within a unified city of Toronto will mean increased efficiency and effectiveness and the subsequent saving in costs.

Does it make any sense that there is a Metro police force but not a Metro fire department? Presumably those who are against a unified stronger Toronto, if they are consistent, will want the Metro police force abolished and each of the current municipalities in Metro with their own police department. It's when you follow the logic of those who are against amalgamation that you see how ludicrous their position really is. Given that 70% of municipal services are already provided by Metro, why continue to fund the six municipal bureaucracies to provide 30% of our services?

I wish to strongly commend this government for the courage it has shown in its commitment to building a stronger Toronto. There is questionable political advantage to this government in promoting amalgamation. Instead of six weak municipalities in Metro Toronto, there will be one strong municipality, the biggest municipality in Ontario, if not Canada. The mayor of the new unified city of Toronto will in effect be the second most powerful politician in Ontario. There will no longer be the possibility of a divide-and-conquer scenario when it comes to the provincial government dealing with one Toronto for all of us.

As well as being a small business person, I am also a homeowner and taxpayer in the Beach within the current city of Toronto, and for a while there, listening to a former presenter, I thought the St Lawrence Market and the Beach were going to disappear in this amalgamation. I must have missed that in the fine print. I am concerned about my property taxes. Since 1985 my school taxes have gone up 120% while enrolment and inflation have increased only 56%.

Given the accomplishments of our students in standardized tests, such as those testing their math and science capabilities, this expenditure has not been well spent when you compare our Ontario students nationally and internationally. Having education costs as the responsibility of the provincial government will ensure that all students in Ontario equally will receive a quality education. That is essential if Ontario and Canada are to remain competitive internationally.

Perhaps the holding of six referendums best exemplifies the moral and economic bankruptcy of having six municipalities within Metro Toronto. Is it undemocratic for the duly elected government of Ontario to amalgamate the municipalities of Metro Toronto into one unified, strong city? Constitutionally, as you all know, municipalities fall within the jurisdiction of the provinces. In Ontario, whether it was the creation of Metropolitan Toronto in 1953 or the amalgamation of Fort William and Port Arthur into Thunder Bay in1970, the practice here in Ontario and across Canada is not to give municipal governments a veto on amalgamation, not surprising, given the conflict of interest of municipal politicians wanting to protect their jobs and perks.

I call on the representatives of the two opposition parties and their leaders to indicate whether or not they agree with this practice of not holding binding referendums with respect to municipal amalgamations. Moreover, if the opposition parties think municipal amalgamation should be subject to binding referendums and if a majority in one municipality decides not to amalgamate, will they exempt that municipality from being amalgamated, should they ever become the government? If either of the two opposition parties supports binding referendums with respect to municipal amalgamation, will they ensure that the binding referendums are unbiased and secret?

My wife, Jennifer, heard from one of our best friends, the Campbells, who live in Scarborough, that their household, which is composed of two qualified municipal voters, received along with their three mail-in ballots on the amalgamation referendum a covering letter from their mayor, Frank Faubert, and an instructional pamphlet on how to fill out their mail-in ballots. Both the mayor's letter and the instructional pamphlet, in effect, urged them to vote no.

Moreover, their mail-in ballot is not a secret ballot. On the very same side that you vote either no -- interestingly that no is first -- or yes, you are required to sign and print your name and address. This is outrageous, and the mayor and municipal election officials in Scarborough do not believe in a secret ballot. That act alone disqualifies the result of the referendum in Scarborough and probably taints the referendum overall for all the other municipalities. Heaven knows what they're doing.

Thinking that our friends in Scarborough must be mistaken, I asked them if I could see the mailing they received. They readily provided the material to me, which I have here. In case any of you don't believe it, you can look at it. Moreover, you can look at the attachments I've added. I've made a photocopy of all of it so you can clearly see for yourselves the non-democratic approach to referendums that the city of Scarborough is taking with regard to this material. You will find a copy of the Scarborough non-secret mail-in ballot, Mayor Frank Faubert's biased letter, and the biased instruction pamphlet attached to the back of my written submission.

I suspect that much of the vocal opposition to Bill 103 is not from persons who truly oppose this legislation but from special interest groups and from political partisans who are unhappy with the election of Premier Mike Harris's Progressive Conservative government, which promised to reduce the size and cost of government, deliver more services for less cost, and reduce the tax burden on Ontarians, and is now faithfully fulfilling those election promises.

It is generally acknowledged that Canada is one of the most overgoverned countries in the world. The result is overtaxation, duplication, red tape and bureaucracy, and a near-10% unemployment rate across Canada. Surely we do not need four levels of government -- federal, provincial, regional and municipal -- with all the resulting extra bureaucracy and taxes. I applaud the leadership and courage that this government is showing in removing an unnecessary level of government. The resulting stronger and unified new city of Toronto will be able to compete on a global level while at the same time ensuring that we continue to be recognized as the best place to live in North America. Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Johvicas. You've effectively used your allotted time. I want to thank you on behalf of the committee for coming forward today.

ARON HALPERN

The Chair: Would Aron Halpern please come forward. Good afternoon, Mr Halpern, and welcome to the committee.

Mr Aron Halpern: Thank you very much, Mr Chairman and members of the committee. I appear before you today to express my views on the proposed amalgamation of Metropolitan Toronto into one municipality of the city of Toronto. As a younger member of our society, I think it is imperative that people like myself exercise their right to makes their voices heard on issues that will affect them in the coming years. It is also imperative that those who currently hold office and the reins of power listen to people like myself and take our views into equal consideration. As I am sure you are aware, it is my generation that will have to deal with any legacy left behind by any actions taken today.

As a member of the future generation of our province, I've become more and more disillusioned with the debate over this bill, its intentions, its ramifications and its logic. To me the logic and intention behind this bill are clear. It is a clear attempt to make government more effective, efficient and responsive to the needs of the people of this community.

However, I believe that the original goal and purpose of this bill has been blurred to an incredible extent by those who have a vested interest in ensuring that this initiative fails and will reflect poorly upon the current government. Local politicians have entered into an alliance with the provincial opposition to ensure that their respective interests are met.

As I see it, those at the municipal level have an obvious reason to work and ensure that the proposed amalgamation does not occur. If one reviews the counterproposal for the governance of Metropolitan Toronto put forward by the mayors, this point is made clear. The mayors have proposed that the only level of government that is to be removed should be the Metro level; that the individual cities and boroughs will retain their boundaries, councils and jurisdiction, while relieving themselves of a check on their own power.

The mayors propose the retention of six separate councils, six mayoral positions and 48 councillors. The point is made by the proposal itself; one can see the self-serving nature of it. The mayors propose to retain their own positions, their own jurisdictions, while getting rid of a check on their jurisdiction and power. To me this is incredible. The proposal by the mayors is completely overlooking the purpose and reason for this legislation. If it were the intent of the government to ensure that the status quo would continue to exist, it would not have introduced this legislation in the first place.

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The extreme partisan and self-serving nature of many of those who oppose amalgamation can also be seen in those who have appeared before this committee. For example, Alexa McDonough, who is the leader of our federal NDP, appeared here in an obvious attempt to raise her profile for the simple fact that nobody knows who she is and there's an upcoming federal election. At the same time, she is hoping to endear herself to those activists and opposition members who may be able to lend her an electoral hand in the coming months. This type of contribution is not helpful to the process.

The way I see it is that the legislation's goals is to remove various levels of government, not to destroy individual communities and remove politicians just for the sake of removing politicians. This bill is aiming to ensure that this community continue to adapt and grow in an ever-changing world. Today the six cities and boroughs are only divided by imaginary lines. When the concept of a metropolitan system of government was introduced in the 1950s, many of the cities and boroughs were distinct urban areas due to the simple fact that they were still separated by tracts of undeveloped land. Today, with urban sprawl and the incredible growth that Metro Toronto has experienced, it is impossible to see any physical delineation between those communities. However, it must also be noted that many villages and smaller communities such as Leaside, Forest Hill, Parkdale and Don Mills still retain their very distinct nature as a community.

One of the largest and most persuasive arguments used by the anti-amalgamation coalition is that any removal of their distinction as cities or boroughs will remove any sense of community that exists there presently. It shocks me that any group of individuals would identify themselves with their local form of municipal government, that they need the city of North York, for example, or the borough of East York to exist as an administrative body before they may exist as a community or neighbourhood. A community is not defined by its government but by the people who live there. If the only reason to identify oneself as a member of a community is by the name of its local government, then those people should not experience a great deal of trauma adjusting to becoming a part of the new city of Toronto.

I cannot see the negative side to having one department deliver a service throughout the current metropolitan area or having one cohesive, thought-out city plan or one tax level. There is no logic that will explain to me how costs can go up under such an arrangement. By liquidating some redundant facilities and lessening their administrative bureaucracy, I can only see costs going down.

As I see it, another reason this proposal is being fought against so hard by organizations such as unions is simple. The unions see the end to a very advantageous circumstance: the ability to play city governments off one another. Much like what is seen between the Big Three auto makers or Stelco and Dofasco currently in Hamilton, when a contract is settled in one jurisdiction, the pressure is on the other jurisdictions to match or surpass it. This allows for a bidding war to emerge which is wholly beneficial to the union and their members but not to the taxpayer. With amalgamation, this cost-boosting circumstance will come to an end.

It must be pointed out that the reduction in staffing levels of the city can be accomplished through attrition over a few years. Therefore, those who are arguing from a position of the worry over job losses and security are blowing the impact of amalgamation out of proportion.

Competition between existing governments for new business and investment have an effect much like the spiral effect that unions can create. Creating one city with one development department with one level of taxation and regulation makes obvious logical sense. With the high degree of variation in tax levels and regulations, investing in Toronto must be an absolute nightmare for local business owners and those from elsewhere who are considering investing in this area. An incongruous patchwork of standards and regulations is frowned upon and deemed harmful when one discusses education in this province or when one discusses health care in this country.

The same rule applies to Metro Toronto, albeit on a smaller scale. A scattered patchwork of rules, regulations and taxation levels is harmful to business, thus to job creation and thus to the community of Metro Toronto. The competition created between jurisdictions for the limited pool of investments and new jobs creates a downward spiral as each jurisdiction attempts to undercut the other, thus lessening the overall benefit of any new investment to the community and creating hostility and tension between jurisdictions.

Currently, while one city may enjoy the benefits of having the actual plant, the workers may live elsewhere, perhaps in another city or borough, thus diluting the benefits of new investment for both communities. Even with the competition driven downward spiral created between the jurisdictions, none of the current city governments can compete with the outlying 905 region due to higher fixed costs found in administrative bureaucracy, infrastructure, a lack of planning and a higher density of people.

As one unified city, Toronto administration can be reduced, fixed costs can be reduced, and the region can become more competitive as a whole for investment and reap the benefits as a whole community. It is simply not fair that some restaurants can be allowed to have smoking while across the street another business cannot. Such disparities, between neighbours separated by a few feet and an imaginary line in some circumstances, is ludicrous and harmful to all.

As a young person who will graduate in a couple of months, hopefully, and hope to find meaningful full-time employment, I can only say that I expect from my elected officials that they may take every measure reasonably possible to ensure that economic growth and jobs are a priority and available to me.

As for the question of representation and input, I do not see any problems with the current proposal. I do not believe that with fewer politicians I will have less access and input into the direction of my community. I am satisfied that my vote will continue to be worth as much as it was before, since the entire city will be divided equally and thus every vote will have the same weight.

I have never had a problem with getting attention or assistance from my provincial or federal members of Parliament, and since the population per ward will be similar to these levels, I am confident my needs will be met. If they are not, I will simply vote against the councillor during the next election.

The local neighbourhood committees will provide effective and strong lobbying bodies to use against councillors and the mayor. By ensuring that I, as a citizen, can get involved with the organization, I will be empowering myself to act on behalf of my community and my own self-interest. Such grass-roots participation is valuable and effective, as now demonstrated by the various ratepayers and neighbourhood associations that currently thrive in our community.

Thus I cannot see any limitation or reduction in the opportunity or value of my direct input as a result of the proposed amalgamation. At the same time, we will have the opportunity to reduce the numbers of paid representatives, thus allowing us to save money or reallocate these funds elsewhere.

The concern with the elected trustees to oversee the transition I believe is seriously overblown. It does not seem odd to me --

The Chair: Mr Halpern, I'm sorry, you'll have to wrap up. We're to the end of your time.

Mr Halpern: I'm going to have to wrap up, okay. In other words, I support the amalgamation and it seems to me it's a very straightforward and logical approach to making sure that government changes and adapts to new realities, so that we can go together into the future and grow together as a community and not as separate competing jurisdictions.

The Chair: Thank you very much for coming forward and making your presentation to the committee this afternoon.

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RICHARD THERRIEN

The Chair: Would Richard Therrien please come forward. Good afternoon and welcome to the committee.

Mr Richard Therrien: I'd like to begin by saying that I appear here very bruised and battered, as I've had to pinch myself throughout all levels of this process, that some people say democracy doesn't exist. I had to pinch myself when I called the Clerk's office and arranged for this appointment, I had to pinch myself when she gave me a time, and I had to pinch myself when I got here to make sure that democracy really does work and that we're doing a good job of hearing all sides of this argument.

My name is Richard Therrien and I have been a citizen of this city since the end of October 1996. Some might say that this is too short a time for a person to make a presentation to you, but I disagree. In fact, I would say I'm an excellent person to make a statement on the future of this city, not only myself but all others who have recently arrived here and are free from the nostalgia which may be clouding the judgement of some presenters.

Nostalgia should not be and is not a reason to put off this next step in the evolution of Toronto. Change has never been easy and it's not hard to find some total quality expert or consultant who is willing to hold the hand of an organization to effect some sort of change. Obviously, this goes much further than that.

Currently, I reside in Etobicoke and was flabbergasted by the goings on of both council and the city administrator's office when I first arrived here. Further, I could not and still can't comprehend the total lack of accountability which that council displayed as it related to the expense account affair. This act alone demonstrates that change is needed. Accountability is needed. We need to take better care of our resources. We need to better plan our collective futures.

Many of my new Etobicoke neighbours tell me of the days when lower Etobicoke was thriving, with a variety of small to medium-sized businesses, but that after tax breaks given to companies by towns such as Mississauga and Vaughan, they left Etobicoke after receiving no such comparable offer from that city. This is another incident which demonstrates the need for better planning.

No matter what happens, Toronto and the GTA will always be the economic engine of both Ontario and Canada. Don't we owe it to ourselves, to those who stand to benefit from the spillover effects, to make this city the best it possibly can be? I'm not going to tell this committee anything new, something eye-opening and revolutionary in nature, but I will tell the committee this: If you plan on stifling growth in this area, if you plan on driving businesses away, whether it be a unionized shop or not, if you plan on not creating a better place for your children, then slap on a "Down with megacity" button.

I, for one, plan to make Toronto my new home because my old one, as nostalgic as I am about it, was unable to afford me the opportunity to succeed and to contribute. It was a city with a city council that was formed by councillors and a mayor who lacked overall vision for the future of that city, who were caught up in the squabbles of the moment, squabbles concerning things such as hospital restructuring and one-tier versus two-tier local government.

On the hospital issue, they were unable to provide the province with a satisfactory solution, or in the hospital case no solution at all, and hence had one imposed upon it by an outside -- I mean outside to local government -- committee. Then what happened? The community was up in arms over the fact that its local council was unable to come up with a solution. The only solution the municipal politicians could come up with was that it was the big, bad province that "shoved this hospital restructuring down our throats," but yet they had been given two years or more to get together, talk about it and come up with a suitable hospital restructuring plan. Now most citizens of my old community would agree that they're not exactly thrilled with the new result of this squabbling.

Then what happens with regard to this? This also relates to my need for accountability. The local municipal politicians, who had been given two years to come up with this solution, trash the government, face the media and get some exposure. After council recesses they go back to their offices, they have a drink of water or whatever and they say: "Whew. I'm glad someone else is going to be taking the heat for making this large, momentous decision, which we had absolutely no direction to take. We didn't have the intestinal fortitude to make a decision in this community," and hence, provide it with no future, no overall vision. Of course, they dream of being re-elected by trashing the province.

By taking the heat, the province has shown that it is willing to make decisions to better our futures when local politicians are not up to it. What I'm saying here is, don't put too much faith in your local politicians. They may be good for your area, but when it comes to doing what's right for the province as a whole they may lose sight of the intended goal.

The new councillors elected to represent the new Toronto will have the task of overall accountability for the entire health of this city thrust upon them, and I'm sure it is a responsibility they will not take lightly. As I speak, there are city councillors and mayors preparing their new election strategies for the new Toronto, so I find it highly hypocritical that on the one hand, they sit here and dictate to us that this is a bad bill, that it will somehow ruin our lives and that we are better off with the status quo, while they call organizational meetings with their local supporters.

There is nothing wrong with holding these meetings; it's just that the individual who's saying one thing and doing these meetings should take one side or another. I look forward to seeing the names of individuals who will present themselves as candidates in the next municipal election and see how many of them opposed these proceedings, and those who are now chanting "Down with megacity," a term which I personally dislike, will then be chanting, "Elect me so I can make sure your interests are represented."

I would also like to take this opportunity to applaud those municipal politicians who have publicly supported this bill even though they may be in danger of not being re-elected. This bill is not about the now, it is about what we can be, and I feel that we can be so much more then this. Some individuals would very much like to make this into a complicated issue when there is no need to do so. Certainly, there will be logistical difficulties to overcome, which we will, as well as many other difficulties we will face.

I ask the detractors of this plan, should this bill become law, to assist in the creation of our new city for it will be a city for all of us to enjoy and to work in. Your neighbours will still be your neighbours. The streets you were born on will still be there. There are many places for nostalgia, but not here. I suspect that if this government were not in power today, whoever was the government would be facing similar pressures to do what is being done here today. Let us plan our futures together and I'm sure we will be successful together.

I believe that the logistical instruments for change being proposed by the province, ie the transition team, will consider the input of many. I doubt it is going to discard any good work already being done in this area.

On just a few final notes, I'd like to say that since I am a new citizen of this city, one of the things I very much look forward to is the amalgamation of our transit system. As I reside in Etobicoke I have the luxury of taking either the subway or the GO train to work, but should I select to take the GO train I am then forced to pay a separate token for a five or 10-minute bus ride to my residence. This obviously adds to my cost.

I think we can do a good job of keeping our costs down. I think we can learn from many models throughout the world.

I look forward to having one strong voice for Toronto and all Torontonians, and I very much look forward to making this my new home.

Mr Gilchrist: Thank you, Mr Therrien. Just a couple of points you didn't touch on. There has been much ado about some of the aspects of this bill being undemocratic and I wonder if you care to offer an opinion on the contradiction in terms and how a democratically elected government, when it brings forward a bill, can by definition be undemocratic. Are you concerned about the fact that, for example, there will be trustees to oversee your interests as a taxpayer to make sure no council does anything untoward?

Mr Therrien: Yes, in university I was involved in student governments and there were many squabbles over all types of referenda there as well. The rules are always changing. They seem to be fluid. I don't really think we can put any credibility to the current "democratic" referendums process taking place in the borough and cities today.

Mr Gilchrist: Sorry, I wasn't speaking of the referendum. In the bill there's an aspect that talks about the fact that the province will appoint three trustees to oversee the budgets after each council has duly passed the budget --

Mr Therrien: Yes.

Mr Gilchrist: -- not before, and then simply be there to make sure the council abides by their own democratically voted-on budget. Do you have any concerns about that? Do you see that as somehow dictatorial, which is the phrase being thrown around?

Mr Therrien: Well, no, I don't, because I have to question myself, why would the provincial government, representing all Ontarians, want to kill the economic engine of this city by thwarting it into some sort of dictatorial process or some process where there aren't enough checks and balances? I have faith in the proposed bill.

Mr Gilchrist: Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Therrien, for coming forward and making your presentation today.

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JENNIFER KEESMAAT SYLVIA KEESMAAT

The Chair: Would Jennifer and Sylvia Keesmaat come forward, please. Good afternoon and welcome to the committee.

Ms Jennifer Keesmaat: My name is Jennifer Keesmaat. My husband and I have recently started a private, non-profit corporation that is designed to fund and direct various projects that lead to meaningful job opportunities for street youth. I live in the city of Etobicoke. I am also of the younger generation and I am also concerned about the future of this city as well as of this province.

Dr Sylvia Keesmaat: My name is Dr Sylvia Keesmaat. I am a resident of the city of York and a professor at the Institute for Christian Studies in the city of Toronto. We are not a part of any special interest group. We are individual citizens who have read Bill 103 and considered it thoughtfully.

Ms Keesmaat: Yet we come before you with a sense of futility. We have 10 minutes to speak, and you are listening to hundreds of submissions. We can see the boredom on your faces. There is a sense, across this city, that not only these hearings but also the referenda are futile, since no one is really listening. Therefore, we have but one question: What would it take to arouse a thoughtful response, a serious consideration, of the impact that Bill 103 will have on the welfare of this city? If there was anything that would make amalgamation unacceptable, what would it be?

Dr Keesmaat: Would you need to hear that a megacity is less efficient than smaller cities? You have heard that argued and seen that the studies support such an argument.

Ms Keesmaat: Would you need to hear that a megacity will cost more? You've heard in other presentations that cities over one million people cost significantly more per capita to run than cities of less than one million people.

Dr Keesmaat: Would you need to hear business people argue that a megacity will have an adverse effect on businesses and corporations in Toronto? You have heard such arguments.

Ms Keesmaat: Would you need to hear stories of how large councils are less attuned to communities and neighbourhoods? You have heard such stories.

Dr Keesmaat: Would you need to hear personal stories of how larger councils are less responsive and less accountable to individual citizens? You have heard such stories.

Ms Keesmaat: Would you need to hear an outcry against the appointment of provincial trustees as undemocratic? You have heard such an outcry.

Dr Keesmaat: Would you need to hear that a megacity will increase unemployment rather than providing needed jobs? The KPMG study argues precisely that.

Ms Keesmaat: Would you need to hear that amalgamation will increase the cost and reduce the availability of social programs and services such as libraries, pools and community centres? Studies show this to be true.

Dr Keesmaat: Would you need to hear stories of the amalgamation of other cities where violence, poverty and crime increased? You have heard about Detroit, Los Angeles and even London, England, where I have also lived for a while.

Ms Keesmaat: Would you need to hear a groundswell of opposition that unites both the political right and the political left, both Rosedale and the Annex? You have seen just that.

Dr Keesmaat: Would you need to hear an outcry that crosses racial divisions? You can hear such a united outcry in my own riding of Oakwood.

Ms Keesmaat: Would you need to hear that a large mega-council will be unable to effectively care for the environmental wellbeing of such a diverse and large area? You have heard exactly this.

Dr Keesmaat: Would you need to hear that creating a large megacity with an enormous bureaucracy goes against the conservative ideals of smaller, more local government with more accountability? You have heard just that.

Ms Keesmaat: Would you need to hear personal stories and fears from a wide variety of citizens such as business people, lawyers, social justice workers, politicians, public service employees and ordinary citizens across Metro? These people have spoken. Have you heard them?

Dr Keesmaat: Would you need to hear these people speak not only to their own interests, but to the interests also of those in our cities who are too poor, too hungry and too despairing to speak for themselves? People have spoken to those interests. Have you heard them?

Ms Keesmaat: Would you need to hear of an alternative vision that addresses the current problems our cities face? You have heard such alternative visions in the Trimmer, Crombie and Golden studies, and in a number of submissions made in these very meetings.

Dr Keesmaat: Our concern is about process. We would like to believe that this process is not a sham. We would like to hear that you too have concerns about the negative impact of amalgamation, and that as democratically elected officials you are not turning a deaf ear to those citizens who speak to you. We want to believe that you are weighing the evidence and looking for the most just and fair way forward which will promote not only economic wellbeing but also human dignity and mutual responsibility.

Ms Keesmaat: Here's our question: Mr Hastings, what would you need to reconsider Bill 103?

Dr Keesmaat: Mr Parker, what would you need to hear to consider an alternative vision for making our communities function better?

Ms Keesmaat: Mr Doug Ford, my MPP: What would you need to consider the megacity a bad idea?

Mr Douglas B. Ford (Etobicoke-Humber): I was at Sherway Plaza at noonhour --

Dr Keesmaat: We're still speaking.

Mrs Keesmaat: It's actually a rhetorical question.

Dr Keesmaat: Mrs Munro, Vice-Chair, what are your hopes for the future of these cities? What would you need to hear to consider that amalgamation will lead to harm and not good?

Mrs Keesmaat: We do not have time for everyone to answer these questions. We would like to hear from at least those just named. Are your minds already made up? If not, what would make Bill 103 a problem?

The Vice-Chair: Are you finished?

Mrs Keesmaat: We're finished, thank you.

The Vice-Chair: Questions, then, from Mr Sergio, please.

Mr Sergio: Can I turn our time, Madam Chair, to the government side to answer some of the questions of the deputants' wonderful presentation? May I, Madam Chair?

The Vice-Chair: You can ask, yes.

Mr Sergio: Can I concede my time? I think it would be nice, perhaps, if they wish to comment.

The Vice-Chair: We have to have consent. Is there consent?

Mr Silipo: Absolutely, yes. I'd love to hear the answers.

Mr Hastings: Madam Chair, I don't mind giving unanimous consent, but the procedure here, is it not, is that the deputants make their presentations --

Mr Silipo: Just answer the question, John. Come on. They asked you some questions; just answer the questions.

Mr Hastings: I'm more than prepared to answer, but not in this forum.

Interjections.

The Vice-Chair: Order.

Mr Silipo: Why not in this forum?

Mr Hastings: Because that's not our procedure in this forum, and you know it.

Mr Silipo: Talk to them.

Mr Hastings: I've been listening to them.

Mr Silipo: Talk to them. They've asked you the questions.

Interjections.

The Vice-Chair: Order. Mr Hastings --

Mr Hastings: He knows what the procedure is in this room. They make their presentation and we ask the questions.

Mr Silipo: Right. You set the rules.

Mr Hastings: Those are the rules of the committee, and you know it.

The Vice-Chair: Excuse me, Mr Hastings. Order.

Mr Silipo: Rules can be changed.

The Vice-Chair: All right. We will recess for one minute.

The committee recessed from 1727 to 1728.

The Vice-Chair: We have about a minute and a half in which to continue. Mr Hastings. Sorry -- Mr Ford.

Mr Ford: I would like to answer your questions, and maybe we get a little off track here, but about three or four hours ago, whatever time it is now -- I've lost a little track of the time -- I was before a panel at noonhour at Sherway Plaza and we had approximately 200, 300 or 400 people there asking questions from the floor. When I started there, a lot of people were frightened and they asked me several questions and I told them I was on a panel down here and I said some of the people down here come in day in and day out. One woman came up to me and she said, "Are you criticizing those people there?" I said: "Not at all. I'm here to listen."

What I'm telling you is that these people down there were asking all kinds of questions, and this went over the air on the Motts show, and I claimed that I think this policy is good for Metro Toronto, excellent, the reason being, as I told them, I've lived here for 64 years. I've watched this place from Dundas Street East, they call it now -- that was a mud road and it used to be called Apple Grove. That now is paved. I remember people, even when I was a little kid, saying, "They shouldn't pave this; it'll cause too much traffic." This is all nonsense.

What this is all about is major groups of people getting together, protecting their own interests. They're not interested in the whole of Metro Toronto; they're interested in protecting their own interests. I'm telling you, you're asking all these leading questions -- you can shake your head too -- but when I left down there, there was a whole change of attitude because the people didn't understand what's going on, and I don't really believe you do either, and that's a fact.

Ms Keesmaat: Well, I don't actually represent a group --

The Vice-Chair: I'm sorry. We've run out of time. Thank you very much for presenting here. Thank you for appearing.

GORDON WALKER

The Vice-Chair: I'd like to call on Gordon Walker. Good afternoon, Mr Walker, and welcome to the standing committee.

Mr Gordon Walker: It's a pleasure to be here. I come here in support of Bill 103. I'm sure you have all heard the arguments by now. I don't suppose there's any new argument that you're about to hear or will hear in the future that's novel, but I thought perhaps I could attach myself to a couple that might be attractive.

One is that on all of the arguments about efficiency and lower cost, I identify myself entirely and I'm quite in support of those. But there are two categories that perhaps I could bring some modest insight to. One is the fact that I have adopted this city as my residence for my family and me. Second, having been a former representative over a number of years, I think I can perhaps add a bit of insight to that side of it.

I came here in 1991 as a transplant from London. I haven't had quite Mr Ford's length of time here in my six-year veteran's service, but I did spend 20 years in itinerant service, sort of living like some of you, half in a suitcase and half at home in the city of Toronto, and formed a few views in that period of time.

One of the observations that I think struck me more than anything was when I first arrived here in 1991 and we moved into the city. The first thing I discovered was that there was too much government. It didn't take very much for me to be persuaded that way, but certainly I had the feeling that the municipal government that we had here was forever in our face, so to speak, and that got to me quite a bit. The first opportunity I had, I think like many others, I joined with them in voting against the level of government.

What I like about the amalgamation bill is the fact that this bill will eliminate in effect one government, but do it by amalgamating two sets of governments into one.

The second thing I discovered that was rather mind-opening for me was the fact that this is a city of communities, a community of communities, so to speak. I couldn't get over the fact that the boundaries meant nothing. I live in Rosedale and it didn't mean anything to cross the Governor's Road bridge and go into some other municipality I wouldn't have known I was in. One area -- I think it's Mr Parker's area -- I wouldn't know it was there had the sign not said we are now in East York. Anyway, crossing over there, it seemed I was in the same place that I had just left and the boundaries seemed to mean absolutely nothing.

The communities mean a great deal, and people seem to live in their communities. They live in their Cabbagetown, they live in Lawrence Park, they live in Swansea. Wherever they may be, it's their community, and it struck me as being the key essence of this great city of Toronto. I was really impressed by the fact that communities meant so much more than something like Scarborough, East York, North York or Toronto proper.

It's a rather interesting comparison. In the United States, of course, they want to know what school you went to. In Montreal they want to know where you spend your weekends, because that categorizes people, and here in Metropolitan Toronto they want to know where you live. You don't tell them Scarborough; you don't tell them Toronto. You say, "Well, I'm in Cabbagetown" or in Rosedale or in Lawrence Park, wherever. So it was rather an interesting discovery on my part.

The second aspect I speak to you from is having been a representative over a number of years. I was a minister for business development portfolios in industry and trade and consumer and commercial relations, and in that, the conclusion that I would draw is that an amalgamated city will generate more jobs. It's the more jobs I think that's a very interesting aspect of it. We will generate more jobs by developing more clout as a city, by becoming a much more efficient city, by becoming a much stronger one so that we will speak with one voice, one great voice, one substantial voice that maybe will win the Olympics the next time, that maybe will win a world's fair, maybe will win these great projects and megaprojects that just create hundreds and thousands of jobs in the process. By having the one single voice, I feel that we will come together as a unit rather than some seven competing organizations, each one trying to outdo the other and stand upon their turf and all of the problems that flow from that.

On the question of the so-called vote, I really think that's a farce, the vote that's going on at the moment. I can't imagine anything that's more an exercise in futility than what we're seeing. The results will be meaningless. Whatever way they come out, I think they're going to be meaningless. I've never seen anything that's as ludicrous as that. The question put on the ballot is as loaded as you're going to find.

I think sometimes those MPP newsletters that went out are much more scientifically based than what we see on this ballot. I heard today of course that one borough actually has you sign the ballot in an essence of democracy. I think these are the kinds of things that the Royal Canadian Air Farce would make something of, once they have an opportunity to draft some of their skits, this entire process. You can't even get the mayors together on the questions. You can't get the mayors together on the process of it. There are six different approaches that are being taken, six different kinds of balloting. It's ludicrous, and to think that the six mayors or seven mayors would all come together as we thought maybe they could have in the past to support one direction is, I think, not something that's going to happen. Quite frankly, the results should probably be ignored. The fact is that we're going to end up with nothing more than something that gives referendums a bad name. Referendums can be good, and I think this one is a bad way to start the process.

On the question of constituencies being too big, all of you are MPPs representing areas or numbers much greater than any of the constituencies that will exist in Toronto for the councillors. You'll have two councillors in Toronto doing about the same amount of work as perhaps one MPP, so that should make it a little bit easier for them and I don't accept the argument that the constituency size will be far too large for the councillors in this city.

As to the confusion, I think the next day after amalgamation and for many, many months and years thereafter the garbage will still be collected just the same way it was a few days earlier and the fire trucks or the police department will turn up when they're supposed to. There won't be changes in all of that. I don't think there will really be any substantial confusion, but we sure will have a lot fewer politicians around to muddle the pie. We'll certainly have a lot less expense. We'll certainly have more efficiency and we'll certainly have cheaper government all the way around.

I think, quite frankly, it's a wonderful opportunity to create jobs, and I would encourage the committee to support it as much as they possibly can. I'm sure there are some political sides here that will come to the fore, but I really do encourage the committee to report on this bill in total support and encourage the Legislature to pass it as quickly as possible so that we can get on with the job. It's been a lot of years coming to this point, a lot of studies. Now it's time to take action, and I would hope that we all would. Thanks very much.

Mr Silipo: Mr Walker, a couple of questions, first around the comments that you made and the comments that you have written in your brief around the lists and some of the problems that have cropped up with the municipal lists and the whole balloting process. You are aware, I'm sure, that the lists that are being used are the responsibility of the province, not the individual municipalities. You will recall that from your days in government, that in fact it's the province that's responsible for setting out the local municipal election lists, not the municipalities.

Mr Walker: Oh, I understand that.

Mr Silipo: So if there are any problems, it's not the fault of the municipality if they mail, as your brief says, to the wrong people or people who have passed away. They're not the ones we should be looking to blame if we want to blame anybody.

Mr Walker: Oh, for gosh sakes, you see hundreds of ballots left in every apartment building. I would have to think that's a bonanza for probably the No group to go around and collect all these ballots up. They probably send trucks around at night and probably got thousands of ballots in support.

Mr Silipo: You may not be aware, Mr Walker, that the various procedures that are being used now in terms of alternatives to the traditional way of balloting were adopted and are happening because they were adopted by this government in Bill 86, which was passed just before Christmas.

1740

Mr Walker: The basic point is, I don't think this is a question that should ever have been put on a ballot. It's far too complicated a question for that reason. It's the same thing you found up in Thunder Bay in 1968.

Mr Silipo: Fine. I accept your position on that, but I just wanted to be clear that you and I understood the same thing with respect to whose responsibility the municipal lists were and that they were not the municipalities' but were indeed the province's responsibility. In fact, you may also know that there were some 17,000 corrections to that list submitted almost two years ago by the city of Toronto alone which have yet to be incorporated into the new voters' lists.

Mr Walker: They still managed to have six different approaches when it came to the six different cities.

Mr Silipo: They absolutely did, which --

The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Silipo. We've run out of time. Thank you very much, Mr Walker, for appearing here before us today.

WILLIAM HERRIDGE

The Vice-Chair: I'd like to call upon Bill Herridge, please. Good afternoon, Mr Herridge, and welcome to the standing committee.

Mr William Herridge: Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the committee. My name is William Herridge and I live at 20 Edgar Avenue, Toronto. I thank the committee for this opportunity to appear before it to support the principle of Bill 103 and to make some possible suggestions as to the bill's contents.

My wife and I have lived in the city of Toronto since 1957, and I have practised law in the city of Toronto since 1958. However, I should make it clear that my submission is made as an individual citizen and not as a professional lawyer.

I am also a member of the board of directors and am past president of the North Rosedale Ratepayers Association. Regrettably, my submission is most emphatically not made on behalf of this association, as the association's board of directors, by a majority, has voted to oppose Bill 103.

If, and I emphasize if, the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto did not exist, it would make abundant good sense to amalgamate the six municipalities into four and to make the four municipalities of Toronto, Etobicoke, North York and Scarborough a part of a broader greater Toronto area organization. But Metropolitan Toronto does exist, and as I will try to show the committee, the bulk of the important municipal services are already in Metro's hands. It has been my belief for many years that Leslie Frost's great vision for Toronto should be completed by the amalgamation of the municipalities in Metropolitan Toronto, and I urge the committee not to lose this opportunity.

Let me turn to some specifics.

Water: The filtration plants, the pumping stations and 450 kilometres of trunk watermains are operated by Metro. Why do we need six different departments to operate the local watermains? In my submission, we do not.

Sewage: The sewage treatment plants are in the hands of Metro, and Metro operates 348 kilometres of trunk sewers. Why do we need six different departments to operate the collector sewers? In my submission, we do not.

Police: Is there anyone suggesting that we should have four or six different police departments in Metro? If there are such people, I've never met them. The only alternative would be what they have in London, England, where policing is a function of the central government. I don't hear anyone urging that either. It seems to be the general consensus that we have a good police department at present in Metro. While I am an unqualified admirer of the present city of Toronto fire department, I really see no reason why a unified fire department would not also be an excellent one and one with economies of scale.

Garbage: Metro operates the landfill sites. I am at a loss to see why we need six different departments to take the garbage to the landfill sites.

Licensing: At the present day, we have one metropolitan licensing commission. Is anyone seriously suggesting that we should have separate taxicab licences for Etobicoke and Toronto, or separate plumbing and heating licences for Scarborough and North York? I don't hear anyone advocating this, and if they did, it would be my submission that they make no sense.

Parks: I am certain that all members of the committee are familiar with the splendid Metro Parks department. In the spring, if it ever does come, look down University Avenue and see those magnificent flower beds in the median, maintained by Metro Parks. I urge on the committee that one parks department could operate all the parks in the metropolitan area.

I note, in passing, Metro Toronto's fine support of the performing arts and especially its support of the National Ballet of Canada, which is an organization very dear to my heart.

Libraries: At the present day, we have a central Metro Reference Library. I suggest to the committee that substantial economies would be realized if we had one library system for all of Metro.

Ambulance: We have a Metro-wide ambulance service. It is my submission to the committee that is the way it should continue to be.

Conservation and flood control: Metro Toronto has been the source of the bulk of financial support for the Metropolitan Toronto and Region Conservation Authority. In my submission, the MTRCA has done its work well. If Hurricane Hazel were to visit the metropolitan area again, I am confident that the loss of life and property which attended the earlier hurricane would not recur.

And so it goes through the list of municipal services.

What is the fear that is driving the opposition to Bill 103? I recognize the opposition is there, and there with a vengeance. I believe it is driven by fear. In my view, much of this fear relates to the new assessment system and the proposed transfer of various governmental responsibilities between different levels of government. These matters of course have nothing to do with amalgamation, strictly speaking.

But I think there is a further fear. Somehow there is the fear that if Metro is amalgamated, what are now stable, low-density residential areas will become the sites of high-rise developments. In my view, this fear is irrational and without foundation.

Subsection 2(7) of Bill 103 provides that all existing bylaws remain in force. This means that existing official plans, including secondary official plans, remain in force and that all zoning bylaws remain in force. This, in my view, is the effect of subsection 2(7) of Bill 103, although I would suggest to the committee that the wording of this subsection might be strengthened to make this position even clearer.

I would also hope that the formation of neighbourhood committees, pursuant to section 5, might also alleviate these fears. Perhaps section 5 might be amplified and made more specific as to the committees' composition and functions.

In addition, we all know that the final word on planning and zoning matters rests not with municipal councils but with the Ontario Municipal Board. Those protections are in existence today; they will continue in existence after the passage of Bill 103.

Standing back from the bill and looking at it generally, I must say that I would wish to see a greater involvement of the Ontario Municipal Board in the amalgamation process. Both the 1953 act establishing Metro and the 1966 act reducing the number of area municipalities within Metro provided significant roles to the OMB. I suppose we all criticize individual decisions of the OMB -- I do, especially when I lose -- but I suggest to the committee that over the years the OMB has done its job well and I suggest that some of the powers given the board of trustees and the transition team might be confided to the Ontario Municipal Board. I believe this course might give greater public confidence to the process.

One further matter I would mention to the committee -- and frankly, I don't know the answer and I have had difficulty in finding it out -- is what effect the dissolution of the London county council has had on the effectiveness of municipal organization in London, England. It is my understanding that it has been bad. If the committee has the time and the resources, I would urge the committee that this is a matter to which it might give consideration so that mistakes which were made in London are not repeated in Toronto.

In conclusion, I thank the committee for this opportunity to present my views and I urge the committee to proceed with the amalgamation of Metro, which to me represents the long-overdue fulfilment of Leslie Frost's vision. I also respectfully ask the committee to consider the specific points which I have mentioned. Thank you very much.

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Mr John L. Parker (York East): You comment that perhaps the motivation for opposition might come from concern that there will be a development of high-rises. Frankly, I haven't heard that one. What we have heard quite a bit is a concern that if there is amalgamation each individual community might lose its sense of community, that there will be a loss of the distinctiveness of the various communities around the Toronto area. Can you comment on that fear?

Mr Herridge: I would, sir. I just wonder to what extent the communities follow the municipal boundaries. Lawrence Park, which is half North York, half Toronto, in my submission is one community. The erasing of the artificial line would benefit the community. I think you could make a strong case that the stable, low-density residential community of north and south Rosedale, Moore Park, Governor's Bridge and the area south of Moore constitute one community. Again you would erase the artificial boundary between East York and Toronto.

In my submission, areas of community do not follow municipal lines. They have grown up independently of them. They may be within municipalities, but if Cabbagetown is a community now in the city of Toronto, I see no reason why it is not a community within the larger Metro.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr Herridge, for coming forward and making your presentation to the committee today.

CAMILLA GEARY-MARTIN

The Chair: Will Camilla Geary-Martin please come forward. Good afternoon, and welcome to the committee.

Ms Camilla Geary-Martin: Good afternoon. Thank you for being here to listen to me this afternoon. My name is Camilla Geary-Martin. First of all, I would like to tell you a little about myself and why I am here today. I feel that I'm a fairly typical Canadian, typical Ontarian. I've been proud of my country, my province, my city, especially at this time when Toronto has been named by Fortune magazine as the most livable city in the world.

I vote in the elections and then I get on with my life. I have four children and I'm extremely busy helping them grow into caring, compassionate, contributing members of our society. I leave the running of government to those elected. In the past this has been relatively effective. I have felt that the governments have done a reasonable job representing me and looking out for the community at large.

A government's first and foremost responsibility is to the people who elect it, to listen to those people, to determine their needs and to meet their needs by passing appropriate legislation.

Lately, however, I have seen shifts in the way the governments have conducted their business, which I have found profoundly disturbing, shifts away from meeting the needs of people to meeting the needs of a large corporate agenda, shifts away from reducing unemployment, improving working conditions, guaranteeing minimum wages, working towards pay equity, protecting the environment, helping those within our communities who have special needs and supporting people through difficult times so they can improve the quality of their lives and become valued contributing members of our society once more.

These shifts become rifts when we end up pitting rich against poor, when welfare recipients are blamed for the demise of our society and governments beg off all responsibility. It sound rather like the Somalia inquiry, where all the responsibility lies not with the generals but in the hands of the corporals.

When we look to meet the needs of the corporate agenda instead of the needs of people, we see profits as the driving force. Jobs, wages, equity and the environment all are seen as obstacles in the way of progress. When we strive to compete in a global economy controlled by big business, we see fewer workers, lower wages, fewer benefits, longer hours and lower environmental standards as assets.

Like the mother in Mary Poppins, I have been driven to leave the children at home and go out to fight for what I believe in. I, like many other average Canadians, am no longer content to sit and watch governments unravel the fabric of our nation, our province and our cities. I see this country as an incredibly large tapestry, like those that tell the stories of the Bayeux tapestries. Our rich colourful tapestry has been woven over hundreds of years and by generations of Canadians.

The community is important to me. When the needs of the community are not being met, I feel that my needs are not being met. When there are major problems and unrest in the community, we all feel the impact.

At a time of fiscal restraints at all levels of government, we have all felt the pinch. Our local government has worked hard over the past years to deal with cutbacks and to balance its budgets with the minimum effect on the essential services it provides for the people. We have a wonderful, dynamic city here in Toronto. It is not broken. We do not need megacity legislation to fix it.

Specifically, things that are bothering me and upsetting me about this megacity and why I think it should withdrawn in its entirety:

The background to this Bill 103 was the omnibus bill, which rewrote many of the rules by which we are normally governed.

The bill was announced to the board of trade first, not to the Legislature. This shows contempt of our elected representatives. It's interesting now that the board of trade is speaking out against the bill.

This bill continues this contempt of the people by establishing a board of trustees and a 44-member transition team at great expense to the city. They will have uncontestable powers to govern, not subject to normal democratic checks and balances. The transition team will be empowered to make new contracts, privatizations and regulations that will be binding on future elected representatives. It has been dictated that the trustees cannot speak to the press. This is all completely unacceptable. Meanwhile, our duly elected councillors will be hog-tied in carrying our the duties they were elected to perform.

The government is refusing to respect the results of the referendum being held. My Toronto includes local democracy.

Amalgamation will not save money as claimed. Even the KPMG report will make no guarantee of cost savings despite the termination of 4,500 jobs. On the contrary, amalgamation will cost us in time, energy and confusion, added to losses in accountability and locally mandated services. The legislation is a recipe for a large American-style city, not the finely tuned Toronto that our mayors and councillors have worked so hard to evolve over the years.

Democracy costs money, and I am willing to pay for a system that is responsive locally and is democratic. The idea of a tier of unelected local committees with no accountability is really frightening. This sounds like China with its central committee and local hacks to me. It only took one Stalin to run the Soviet Union. I certainly don't want that type of efficiency.

The population of the proposed megacity is larger than the provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan combined. The new system, with so few councillors for so many constituents, will inevitably lead to expensive election campaigns and party politics at the municipal level -- bad news.

Mike Harris has no mandate for change of the horrendous scope proposed in the megacity legislation. The amalgamation format proposed flies in face of the recommendations of all previous studies. Combined with the downloading of social costs proposed in accompanying legislation, it is a real disaster. The board of trade says so. Crombie says so. I say so. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out.

This legislation is wrong in motivation, wrong in spirit, wrong in practice. It deserves to be scrapped. I repeat, a government is first and foremost responsible to the people who elect it, to listen to those people, to determine their needs and to meet their needs by passing appropriate legislation. I appeal to you all to vote with your constituents so you can face them with a clean conscience.

Let us get on with discussing what improvements might be needed in Toronto, in a civilized, open fashion such as is our historic experience, and stamp out such dictatorial tendencies as this legislation implies, before it's too late. Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms Martin. You've exhausted your allotted time. I want to thank you for coming forward to the committee to make your presentation.

1800

MICHAEL SHAPCOTT

The Chair: Would Michael Shapcott please come forward. Good evening, and welcome to the committee.

Mr Michael Shapcott: Good afternoon. My name is Michael Shapcott. I'm here today as a concerned father, as a committed co-op housing activist, as an active community member and as a long-time advocate on homelessness and low-income housing. I am here today to say no to megacity. I am here today to say no to the Harris government's plans to shred social housing and other social programs by dumping them on municipalities.

I live in the Windmill Line Housing Co-op in the St Lawrence neighbourhood in the city of Toronto, at the southern end of the St George-St David riding. If I go up on the roof of my co-op I can scarcely see to the very north end of the riding, where my member of provincial Parliament, the Honourable Allan Leach, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, lives in his Rosedale mansion, which I see is estimated to be worth close to $1 million.

But if I stand up on my roof and look to the east, I can see about three blocks away the abandoned building where the body of Bill Hunta was discovered on February 3. Mr Hunta, who was 74, died cold and homeless within a few metres of a non-profit housing project that was being developed by Dixon Hall. That housing was cancelled by Mr Leach within days of the Harris government coming to office. Mr Leach said the province's taxpayers cannot afford to fund affordable housing for homeless people. I wonder whether Mr Leach believes we can afford Mr Hunta's death, or that of many other homeless people who have died since the Harris government has come to office.

From the rooftop of my co-op I can look to the west and see the Spadina bus loop, where a homeless man, Edmond Wai Hong Yu, was killed by police bullets last Thursday. According to media reports, three police officers confronted this unarmed man on an otherwise empty bus and gunned him down. Instead of the affordable housing and the appropriate services this man needed, he received taxpayer-funded bullets in his head and body. Now the only government service that Mr Yu can expect is a pauper's funeral.

If I continue to look to the southwest I can see the Gardiner Expressway, where the body of a homeless man, Mirsala Aldin Kompani, was found frozen to death a year ago. An inquest jury probing his death and that of two other men last year called on Minister Leach to meet with other levels of government, community groups and the homeless to develop strategies to end homelessness. Mr Leach hasn't even had the courtesy to meet with the Toronto Coalition Against Homelessness, even though coalition members have made four visits to the minister's office to hand-deliver a request for a meeting. A brand-new set of security doors, which we are told cost $70,000, now protects the minister from further requests for meetings. Minister Leach makes the shocking assertion that homelessness has nothing to do with his responsibilities as Minister of Housing.

I say no to Bill 103 because I believe in democracy, but I also believe in equity and justice. I say no to Bill 103 because I want to see an end to the suffering and death on the streets of Toronto. And I know it can end. In this city, we have the knowhow and the resources to fund and develop affordable housing and appropriate services that the homeless and low-income people need. While I say no to megacity, I say yes to the city of Toronto working in partnership with the community, and in partnership with the governments of Ontario and Canada, in a concerted campaign to end homelessness in our city.

There has been a lot of talk during the Bill 103 debate about democracy. The critics of Bill 103 have already pointed to the many anti-democratic components of this legislation. I simply want to add that no matter how carefully conceived are the structures of government and the mechanisms of elections, true democracy cannot exist in a radically divided society. The Harris government's housing policies are creating a radically divided Toronto.

In this city's polarized housing market, upper-income households have low interest rates, favourable tax subsidies and a relatively good supply of housing stock. Lower-income households are facing dwindling new supply, deteriorating standards and the promise of huge rent increases once the government guts tenant protection laws. It's all part of the commonsense philosophy of this government to pamper the rich with tax cuts and other taxpayer-funded incentives while the poor are punished and driven onto the streets.

It seems that the Harris government believes that the rich are inherently hardworking and simply need the appropriate tax handouts to encourage them to invest, while the poor are inherently lazy and need to be beaten into submission.

I want to say that I agree with those who say the status quo in Toronto is not acceptable, but I say no to the Harris and Leach scheme of stripping away the structures of democratic local government. We need to concentrate our efforts on ensuring that all members of our society are able to participate in democratic government. We need to focus on the fundamentals: good housing, decent jobs, a fair income and basic equality.

I want to say, especially to the government members of this committee, that there is another course for this government, and it's a path that is tried and true. Instead of gutting local government and then saddling the big, new megacity bureaucracy with a huge set of responsibilities far beyond its ability to fund, your government could accept that the true business of government is governing, governing for all the people, not just the Rosedale neighbours of Minister Leach.

Back on the roof of my co-op, if I look a few blocks to the north I can see to Queen and Parliament and the site of the former Rupert Hotel rooming-house. Back on December 23, 1989, there was a horrific fire that roared through that building. Ten lives were lost, making it one of the worst blazes in the history of Toronto. The community came together to demand that the dead be remembered. The community pressed the city, and in particular the Toronto fire department, which responded with a campaign to improve fire safety conditions in low-income housing. Fire officials set in place a series of practical initiatives that resulted in immediate improvements. The number of fire deaths has dropped dramatically.

The Rupert Hotel Coalition, a group of community agencies and advocates, worked with city officials and the Ontario Ministry of Housing, as it was then known, in an innovative partnership with private and non-profit landlords to rehabilitate more than 500 units of low-income stock and provide services that homeless people need and want. Both the internal and the independent evaluation of the Rupert pilot project pronounced it a success.

There are plenty of other models of successful housing and services for the homeless. The coroner's jury examining Toronto's homeless deaths last year agreed and urged the provincial government, in partnership with others, to build on these successful models.

Let me repeat: We don't lack the knowledge to end homelessness in our city. We don't lack the ingenuity of committed community organizations. We don't lack the resources. What is missing is a provincial government that is prepared to take up its responsibilities. Instead of tax breaks to the rich, the government should be working with community partners to deliver necessary housing and services to the poor. I call that common decency, something that seems remarkably uncommon these days at Queen's Park.

I say no to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, whose major construction activity in the last 18 months has been new security doors at the minister's office. I say yes to increased partnerships between community and government to end homelessness in Toronto and across Ontario.

I say no to Bill 103 because it takes local government further away from the people of Toronto, especially the poor and homeless people of my neighbourhood. And I say an emphatic no to the downloading of social housing and social programs that is an integral part of this government's agenda.

I challenge Minister Leach and the government members of this committee to serve all constituents, not just the wealthy Rosedale people. I don't know what goes on in your hearts and the hearts of Minister Leach, Premier Harris and others in your government, but when I look at your policies -- increased homelessness, increased street deaths, increased hunger, increased misery, increased injustice, increased inequality -- I wonder how you and your colleagues can deal with your consciences.

Perhaps you are so committed to your policies that you believe, no matter how many people die, you must stay the course. I want to say to you, I don't admire a government that sticks to its promises as the morgue gets filled to overflowing. I feel horror and repugnance.

On Thursday, I am travelling to Washington to meet with 100 other housing and homeless advocates from across the United States. This special summit, called Creating Better Futures, is a chance for those of us engaged in the work of building and managing affordable housing to compare notes. We won't, of course, be meeting in Washington proper, because as many of you know, the American capital has a gutted core, the product of years of neglect and abuse by local and national governments. Washington is about the same as most other large US cities, with its inner-city burnt out by the disastrous housing policies of national, state and local governments.

I intend to take careful notes during my visit to Washington because, I am sorry to say, the future of Toronto under the megacity and downloading scheme of this government is US-style decline, increased poverty and misery, run-down housing and increased violence.

Let me end by quoting the words of a Chilean author, Eduardo Galeano. Nine years ago, Galeano was asked to speak on behalf of 300 intellectuals and artists who had formed a group called Chile Creates. In those days, the Chilean government, under General Pinochet, had called for a plebiscite to confirm its rule and was using extensive media advertising to convince people to vote yes on the plebiscite. Galeano delivered a rousing speech on why "we say no." In his speech he said: "As it happens, we are saying no, and by saying no we are saying yes. By saying no to dictatorships, and no to dictatorships disguised as democracies, we are saying yes to the struggle for true democracy, one that will deny no one bread or the power of speech."

That's my submission.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Shapcott. You effectively utilized your allotted time. I want to thank you on behalf of the committee for coming forward this evening.

1810

JOHN PEPALL

The Chair: Will Mr John Pepall come forward, please. Welcome.

Mr John Pepall: Thank you, Mr Chairman. My name is John Pepall and I live by the St Lawrence Market in downtown Toronto. I've lived there for about 14 years. I've lived all my life in Toronto, in the city of Toronto as it now is, with the exception of four years at university. But I have never known and I don't know today what the boundaries of the city of Toronto are. It is, when you look at a map, a rather muddled-looking shape. On the other hand, I know and have always known roughly what the boundaries of Metropolitan Toronto are.

I love Toronto, but the city or community that I love under that name is not bounded by the official borders of the city of Toronto. It is that community that exists within the boundaries of Metropolitan Toronto. I believe that municipal government should correspond to the real existing communities that have grown up and not be determined by accidental borders that have grown up through history. The boundaries of the area communities within Toronto are by and large accidents of history and they mean nothing to the people who live within them or the people who live along them.

An important aspect of a healthy municipal government is media coverage. The media in Toronto corresponds to Metropolitan Toronto. If anything, they go beyond it to the greater Toronto area. There's little effective coverage of the affairs of the local municipalities within Metropolitan Toronto, and there is little prospect of that so long as Metropolitan Toronto remains divided among the several existing area municipalities.

Upon amalgamation proceeding, we can hope there will be a clearer focus of public consciousness on the activities of the new city council with an invigorating effect on Toronto's politics, and I would expect an improved voter turnout at elections both this fall and in the years to come.

One of the other problems with the present situation in Toronto is that it is a two-tier government in which the higher tier has, as it were, disappeared over the political horizon while having the larger part of the taxing and spending responsibilities within Metropolitan Toronto.

There is some coverage of what goes on at Toronto city council in our media. There is only occasional coverage of what goes on at Metro council, even though the decisions made there are often among the most important made at the municipal level in Toronto.

I believe it is important that our Metro-level government be brought back to the people, and I believe that by amalgamation we will do that.

Direct election of members to Metro council might have seemed a way of bringing Metro council and local electors together. But once the Metro councillors became purely Metro councillors, they seemed to disappear from our lives altogether. When the senior aldermen, as it used to be, were the Metro councillors from the city of Toronto, people still knew who they were and what they were up to, though I suspect most of that was because of their continuing city responsibilities.

In the future, under an amalgamated city, everybody who is interested in municipal politics will know who their local councillor is, will have ready access to that person and will be able to hold that person accountable for his or her performance in a way that in the present politics of Metropolitan Toronto is almost impossible.

I believe an amalgamated city will bring savings. It certainly should, but it will be up to the new city council to fulfil that promise in their first term, and I would hope that if they fail to fulfil that promise they will be held accountable at the polls in the year 2000.

I have heard nothing to explain the fears that have been expressed that the savings will not be there. You heard in the submission three people before me about the duplication that may be eliminated by amalgamation. These should produce savings.

On the other hand, we've heard of studies that say there's an optimum size for cities, around 500,000 to one million people. I've heard nothing to explain why this should be the optimum size, and the only glimmer of understanding I've received from anything I've read is to suggest that in many amalgamations, what is done is that semideveloped, semirural territory is annexed to a burgeoning city. In Metropolitan Toronto today, we are not bringing together undeveloped or semirural territory with a burgeoning city. All of Metro Toronto is thoroughly developed, perhaps in some cases overdeveloped, and under this bill we are providing a municipal government structure that will provide for the accountable government of that city.

There's been some comment to the effect that local government is better when it is smaller. When one has small communities, that's certainly true, but we have a big community in Toronto and we have too many governments within that community, governments that bear no relation to people's actual sense of community.

The communities in Metropolitan Toronto, as you've heard often in these hearings, I'm sure, are far below the level of even the smallest present municipal governments in East York or the city of York. I don't think anybody would suggest that municipal government could be based on those small communities of perhaps only a few thousand people in an urban community the size of Metropolitan Toronto.

That is not the basis for municipal government, but it can be the basis for participation in municipal government and planning decisions. I'm encouraged by the provision in Bill 103 for the establishment of neighbourhood communities. If this is developed properly, it will regularize, standardize and formalize a form of citizen participation in local government decisions that has been helpful in many cases in Toronto but has too often been haphazard.

I have read the bill and read much about the issues that arise from it. I can see nothing but good in the bill. Unfortunately, some people evidently see it differently. They have made a lot of noise. If they have any valid criticisms to make, they were drowned out by the noise.

After the excitement of the present controversy subsides, I look forward to a new excitement as a great city is reborn within the government it deserves.

I observed earlier that some people asked the committee questions, but I understand the standard procedure is that people who appear are asked questions. I take it either that I've persuaded the committee of the merits of this bill or there might be some questions.

The Chair: We sometimes have time left after presentations to ask questions, but unfortunately, you've used your allotted time. I want to thank you, though, for coming forward to make your presentation to the committee this evening.

1820

JOYCE MAJOR

The Chair: Would Joyce Major please come forward. Good evening, and welcome to the committee.

Ms Joyce Major: I am Joyce Major, citizen, and I have never been a card-carrying member of any political party. Getting involved in politics, other than voting, is new to me. My interest started with Bill 26, but Bill 103 really lit my fuse with the timing of its introduction, which was Christmastime 1996, and the autocratic way it was introduced.

We the citizens, not the PC Party, elected our councillors to conduct business on our behalf. Therefore, I consider that Mr Leach has no right to appoint Cy Armstrong, Valerie Gibbons and Jack Pickard as trustees over our elected officials in order to control financial decisions, with full powers to act under Bill 103, even though this bill has not been passed. I deem this to be illegal, undemocratic and not acceptable.

To quote from a Royal Bank letter titled The Prize of Citizenship, the 17th-century English philosopher John Locke was quoted as saying: "The power of the state should always rest with the people. The function of rulers should be restricted to carrying out the people's wishes as expressed by their elected representatives."

Valerie Gibbons has suggested the trustees' pay might be only $200 a day plus expenses. Therefore, since they are being paid by the citizens of this province, I consider it illegal for them to be above the law and not accountable to the citizens. I find, as many others have, and you still can't hear the message, that the decisions of the board of trustees as final "and shall not be reviewed or questioned by a court" a travesty of justice and a sad comment on the state of democracy in this province.

I have two analogies to the introduction of Bill 103. First, the Tories, because they got a majority of seats, behave like the guy who got invited in for a drink after a date and considered that an invitation to rape. Perhaps the argument that you were drunk with power could get you excused.

The second analogy is in the workplace, where the new manager brings in the big broom to prove to the hands that feed him or her that his or her methods of reorganization will increase productivity and produce a higher profit. What really happens is disorganization, stress and a drop in productivity and profits.

We have learned that the arguments put forward for amalgamation -- ie, too many politicians; the Tories were elected to create a megacity; there are all sorts of duplications and inefficiencies; taxes will be reduced; councillors only want to protect their jobs; amalgamation saves money -- are all false.

I just have to repeat what Mr Harris said in the fall of 1994: "There is no cost for a municipality to maintain its name and identity. Why destroy our roots and pride? I disagree with restructuring because it believes that bigger is better. Services always cost more in larger communities."

Lately I have become aware of the high level of media management and one-sided information being sent out by the Tories, using taxpayers' dollars, which only adds to the perception that a lot of politicians are self-serving liars. This type of media management adds to the mistrust of all politicians. How many people are aware of the Internet poll, knowing of course that most computers are in the hands of business and the well-to-do? This poll, I'm told, not only allowed people outside of Canada to take part but was even directed to Republicans in the United States.

The introduction of Bill 103 has become a looking-glass through which we see the far-reaching goals of the Tories. I think about the takeover of Alberta, which now has an increase in its budget surplus due in part to the 5% cut to the salaries of its civil servants for the past three years. Many of these civil servants were teachers and nurses. Wouldn't it be interesting to find out what percentage of those affected were women? Now the Tories in Ontario want to import Mr Klein's Tory format and do to Toronto what they did to Alberta, and I bet, after sucking out the wealth and the caring spirit of Ontario, move on to attack the NDP government of Mr Clark in British Columbia.

It is becoming increasingly obvious to me that the power of the state is being taken over by corporations. They are able to control what you read and see and seem to want to carry out not the people's wishes but the corporate agenda. We must be aware of where we are heading. I think our corporate leaders', ie, Tories', intention of getting on the globalization bandwagon sell our people and the protection of our environment down the drain.

Some believe Bill 103 is a diversionary tactic, the real goal being the downloading of soft services while the government pays for education. The Tories claim it would be a wash. It looks to me like it would be Tories washing their hands of all the soft services they don't approve of, mainly welfare and social services. They think that when push comes to shove, ratepayers will want social services to be cut or dropped before accepting a tax increase. That way, the Tories will have accomplished their objective, while saying they aren't responsible.

Again, I see women as one of the Tories' big targets. I have the impression they think women should stay at home unpaid to do day care, volunteer at schools, look after the elderly and the things that are being kicked out of hospitals. The Tories will also make it possible, if you were beaten by your partner, to get back home in 48 hours so that maybe you can be killed the next time.

I find it worrisome that big dollars can be spent on Tory-directed reports, such as the McGuire one, the Todd, the Lampert, the Golden, the Trimmer, the Crombie, the KPMG. Now a United States firm, Andersen Consulting, is to be paid $180 million of taxpayers' money over the next six years to show the government how to save money in the management of the welfare system. We all know what "management" means, don't we? Why not just buy a branding iron to put a mark on the foreheads of all the undesirables?

Why is it that seniors are now paying more for transit and Wheel-Trans users a fee, when retired TTC executives are being kept on the payroll for life at an annual cost to the taxpayers of $125,000? Honourable, don't you think?

Perhaps this attack on the most vulnerable is the reason they've spent $77,179.24 of taxpayers' money -- perhaps it came out of the cuts to welfare -- to secure several floors and fortify the front doors at 777 Bay Street against the citizens who pay the bills. Maybe doing things in secret behind locked doors that impact so negatively on a lot of powerless people leads to this kind of seige mentality.

In regard to amalgamation, would Mr Leach have his house redecorated without consulting his wife? But he doesn't have a problem with messing up other people's lives without consultation or considering the best interests of the people involved.

My two questions are, first, why the big rush? Is it, as Scarborough mayor Mr Faubert suggested, "to neutralize Toronto's political opposition to the Tories"? Second, why wasn't an open transitional team of laypeople, our legal representatives and Tory ministers set up first, to take the necessary time, two or three years if necessary, to work through the changes needed that best reflect the needs of the people? I'm not speaking about business here. I repeat: the needs of the people.

I quote from one of Tom Harpur's columns, where he said, "We all walk with a limp." I would like to add, if he didn't, that some of us limp more than others. Even though corporate thinking is that if you make your bed, you can lie in it, that doesn't reflect the view we have of ourselves as caring deeply for all our citizens. I don't see Bill 103, 104 etc doing that.

My suggestions are, don't try to sweeten the pot with offers that can be manipulated or changed. You have lost credibility with me. Instead of trying to save face with your corporate handlers or Mr Klein, please withdraw Bill 103 and keep the faith with the people. If you're not prepared to do that, then my suggestion to your moral and decent backbenchers is that if you can't take a much-needed vacation at the right time, be prepared to be true to yourselves. Stand up when the time comes and do the walk. It will feel good. If I can find the courage to come here and do this, then you can find the courage too.

If anybody here thinks that big is better, consider the population of Bombay; a supertanker's ability to pollute; larger aircraft using more fuel and reducing comfort and services; high-rise apartments with diminished safety and quality of life; a 20-room house housing three people and wasting fuel, space and goods.

I consider that Bill 103 will cause harm, as it is ill-conceived and dictatorial.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms Major. You've effectively exhausted all your allotted time. I thank you on behalf of the committee for coming forward this evening.

The committee recessed from 1830 to 1909.

LESLIE YAGER

The Chair: Could I have Leslie Yager, please. Good evening. Welcome to the committee.

Ms Leslie Yager: My name is Leslie Yager. I'm a lawyer, and I work in the real estate and development field. I have lived in the city of Toronto for the past 27 years and I'm here tonight to speak against the passage of Bill 103.

The current system of local governance that we have in the city of Toronto is small and very community oriented. As a result, in my opinion this makes the city of Toronto an excellent place in which to live and work.

Currently, the Walt Disney Co is in the process of opening a 60,000-square-foot animation studio at the corner of Dundas and University. I believe it's one of the few studios they will be operating outside their home base in California.

Why are they here? For years, Disney has been heavily recruiting among the graduates of Sheridan College for computer animators. Recently, however, Disney has found that these bright young graduates have not been keen to move to Los Angeles, despite the glamour and prestige of working for Disney. They want to stay in Toronto because it's a good place to live and work. As a result, the mountain has come to Muhammad and Disney has opened a studio here to take advantage of our young Canadian talent. This brings prestige to our city and stimulates the economy.

Our city council has historically been able to keep our city alive and vibrant through a concerted effort to keep the city core a good place to live and work. When David Crombie was mayor he showed incredible foresight in his efforts to encourage people to live in the downtown core, starting with the redevelopment of the St Lawrence neighbourhood. As a result, our downtown core has never become an unsafe, deserted wasteland like many other downtown areas in North America.

Recently, Mayor Hall initiated a zoning initiative that allows industrial properties to be converted to live-work spaces. It is as a result of this initiative that I have my job today, as my company specializes in these conversions. The units are flying off the market and we're having a hard time finding enough properties to convert. This type of initiative costs very little money, yet brings tremendous economic benefits to our city and ultimately to the province as a whole.

In my opinion, Toronto will continue to be a successful city because it is small, locally governed and responsive to the needs of the people. But, you will ask me, why won't these things happen in a megacity? Based on my own experience, it won't.

I'm a member of the Yonge Street Business and Residents Association, a group formed two years ago to improve downtown Yonge Street. We have an eclectic mix of small and large business operators, such as the Eaton Centre, the Cadillac Fairview Corp, the Senator Restaurant and Barberian's.

Two years ago, we approached both our city and our Metro representative with our list of concerns, among them being policing, safety, the appearance of the street and the lack of good quality retailers on Yonge Street.

The response from the Metro government, which in many ways is similar to the proposed megacity, was almost nil. The response, however, from the city level of government has been fantastic.

In the two-year time period, we've had the city initiate a façade improvement program where over a million dollars of storefront renovations have been started based on about $166,000 in city tax grants. Significant improvements have been made in garbage pickup and street cleaning. Even more important, the city is partnering with our committee in a mega-project centring on the corner of Yonge and Dundas called the Yonge-Dundas rejuvenation project.

This project, which is subject to provincial approval, and I hope you'll all vote for it, will see the creation of a public plaza at Dundas and Yonge and the creation of valuable development lots for retail, entertainment and hotel uses.

Already our group has received expressions of interest from at least half a dozen major development companies from around the world that want to participate in this project.

These kinds of initiatives are good for the city and good for the economy, and I believe the economy of the province is tied very closely to the economy of the city.

Under a megacity these kind of initiatives just won't happen, to the detriment of all of us, and I'm asking you, therefore, please kill this bill. If the bill is going forward in some form, I would however ask you to seriously consider deleting section 16 relating to the transition team.

First of all, I believe it's patently wrong to allow decisions such as are contemplated by section 16 to be made by non-elected officials. To date, the minister has not named one member to the transition team, nor has he given us any indication of how large a group it will be, yet this team has incredible powers, including the right to set budgets for the new megacity for any year in the future, not just 1997 or 1998 but the legislation speaks in section 4(b) of any year in the future.

We are going to have a municipal election in about nine months. I believe the candidates should be given the opportunity to tell us how they would run the megacity and we can therefore cast our votes accordingly. If the transition team is put into place and carries out its mandate under the bill, then the new 44 members of the megacity council will be mere puppets, reduced to the role of administrators only.

Another function of the transition team is to hold hearings on the role of community councils. While I don't have much information about what this proposal entails, what has been published in the papers is striking fear in the heart of all real estate developers. The current system is open and provides a fair give-and-take between community interests and the wants of the development community. Real estate is just starting a comeback now. Throwing uncertainty into the planning process will be counterproductive. Please, if you have to pass the bill, take out section 16.

Mr Sergio: Thanks for coming down and making a presentation to our committee. We have a couple of questions. We, the opposition, have been accused of trying to muddle the issue here by putting the downloading issue together with the megacity issue. We believe there is a connection there. We believe the two of them are connected. How do you see it from a citizen's point of view?

Ms Yager: I see there's a connection between the two things. Do you mean a political connection?

Mr Sergio: That too, a political connection as well, but I think physical, monetary, financial, and for the good of our province and especially for the core.

Let me ask another question: Even the Premier said he wants to maintain a very strong core, a very strong city. Do you believe -- and I just caught the tail-end of your presentation; you're dealing with real estate and stuff like that -- it is possible to maintain that when the tax reform that is proposed by the government does not take into consideration the inequity that exists between the GTA, the regions and Metro?

Ms Yager: I think it's a major weakness of the reform that hasn't been addressed. Another comment I've heard from people in real estate and development, some of whom kind of favour the megacity, is it's just too much happening at once: property tax reform, school trustees, the megacity. It's scaring people to death because when you're a real estate developer you're looking into the future. You have a two-year time span -- buy the property, develop it and get out -- and they don't know what's going to happen, what the rules are.

Speaking about welfare, in my office a couple of people are from New York City. When that downloading was announced, one guy said: "That's it. I'm moving to Uxbridge." They just think Toronto will become like New York.

Mr Sergio: Perhaps we're moving too quickly; this is what we heard from many deputations. What do you think the government should be doing at this stage, just recall the bill, have more public hearings, go back to the studies that have been done -- Crombie, Golden, whatever -- have more consultation and come up with something else?

Ms Yager: I think one of the great weaknesses in the way the government has been proceeding is they haven't accurately defined what the problem is they want to fix. I would love to see the bill withdrawn, but if not, I'd love to see a more gradual form, perhaps amalgamating into four cities and setting benchmarks then as to what the government wants the four municipalities to accomplish. I believe Mayor Hall has said all along, "Tell us what the benchmark is and let us accomplish it." They talk about efficiency but there's no definition. What? Dollars? People? Manpower?

The Chair: Thank you, Ms Yager, for coming forward and making your presentation.

1920

ETOBICOKE TAKES A STAND

The Chair: Would Barbara Seed and Dave Angove please come forward. Good evening and welcome to the committee.

Ms Barbara Seed: Dave and I are presenting a submission on behalf of an organization called Etobicoke Takes a Stand. Etobicoke Takes a Stand is a city-based organization that came into being in September 1996. It brought together individuals from a broad range of organizations, as well as unorganized individuals, to mobilize people in the city of Etobicoke to participate in the Metro Days of Action, which culminated with the October 25 shutdown of Metro Toronto and the October 26 rally at Queen's Park. We saw hundreds of thousands of people voice their opposition to the anti-social offensive of the Ontario government. It has since continued to work on this front.

Bill 103, the City of Toronto Act, is being justified under the various elements of the Common Sense Revolution. In particular, it is being justified as a measure that will fulfil the government's aim of eliminating red tape, government waste and duplication, and generally having less government. Bill 103 has been presented as a reorganization which will yield savings and contribute to the aim of eliminating the deficit. Bill 26, the Savings and Restructuring Act, provided the legislative framework for the current measures.

Etobicoke Takes a Stand poses the question, savings for whom? The claim of savings is an untenable one. This is because, as far as we have seen, the government has not yet presented the costs of running the society in such a manner that the needs of the people in Metro Toronto are met.

In order to show that some restructuring will save money, the government must first establish what the needs of the people are. Determining how they will be provided and how much it will cost will follow. Comparisons can then be made of the various ways of doing this. What is the cost of delivering education, health care, culture and social security to the people? Saying how much was spent last year will not answer this question.

When the government speaks of saving, what we have seen is a shifting of various costs directly on to the people, as has been done through the hundreds of user fees that have been introduced over the past 18 months and a discernible deterioration in the quality and quantity of services provided. Savings, in terms of this government, also translate into thousands of public sector workers being forced into unemployment or forced to accept wages that have been driven down by the pressures of privatization.

Just to further illustrate this point, the government is speaking of being able to save money by bringing the per pupil cost of education down to the national average, without clearly presenting what are the actual costs of providing education at a socially determined level in Ontario.

The government also argues that if certain services can best be delivered by the private sector, then the government should withdraw from these areas and this will amount to a savings, but what savings are being achieved when the privatization of public services and public resources places a retrogressive pressure on the society because it imposes an increased burden on individuals?

By no definition of the word can it be said that privatization will lead to savings. It will certainly lead to the companies which serve the lucrative 2.3 million people-strong markets for utilities, health care, and so on reaping profits as they take over the assets that have been developed through public resources, and they make individuals pay more. Already we have seen the privatization of ambulance operations in several small cities in central and eastern Ontario.

Thus the municipal amalgamation and its aim of facilitating the privatization of various government services and public resources will not produce savings. The increased prices which individuals, directly or through government funding, will pay for privatized services will be harmful, both for the individual and for the society in general, as more and more money is taken out of the economy through privatization of public resources and services.

If reform is needed in the sphere of municipal government, the starting point has to be the needs of the people. The absence of this starting point is the deep flaw in Bill 103 and the reason it has generated such broad opposition. This starting point, when applied to government restructuring, would necessarily lead to addressing the need of the people to participate in the decision-making process.

Far from the proposed reforms, which will lead to the creation of a powerful 44-person council that will rule over 2.3 million people and abolish the councils in each city, what is needed is the broadening of local government through the creation of people's councils.

More power needs to be put into the hands of the people and all the mechanisms should be put in place for them to exercise control over their own lives and their own communities. This would mean that instead of preparing the conditions and legislation for privatizing public services and public resources such as water, electricity and so on, the reforms should go in the direction of placing these public assets more and more in the control of the people.

The definition of bureaucracy and inefficiency and duplication and waste only has its meaning in relation to the aim of the organization at hand. If it is to be accepted that the aim of government is to represent and serve its constituents to ensure their wellbeing and the fulfilment of their needs, then bureaucracy and inefficiency and waste are all those things that obstruct the aim of providing for the needs of the people. By making it more difficult for people to participate in the decision-making process, by further centralizing and concentrating power in the hands of a few, by putting more and more socially necessary services into the hands of the private sector, the Ontario government is proposing to take us in the opposite direction of what is needed for the society.

Etobicoke Takes a Stand would make the following two recommendations in conclusion: (1) enhancement of the people's participation in local government through the strengthening and extension of people's councils; (2) extension of the scope and sphere of public services and placing them under the control of people's councils. These two reforms will be the surest steps towards the elimination of red tape, bureaucracy, government duplication, waste and overspending.

The Chair: Thank you very much. We have several minutes for questions. Mr Silipo.

Mr Silipo: If you want to split that time, Mr Chair, I'm more than fine with that. I'll leave it to your judgement.

The Chair: Okay. What about two and a half minutes per caucus?

Mr Silipo: Sure.

Thank you very much for the presentation. I just want to pick up on your recommendations and ask you to expand a little bit on that because some government members, reading this, might say, "Well, that doesn't sound too different than the local councils" that they envision, the local community councils. I think you're talking about something quite different, but I'd like to ask if you could expand on that a little bit more.

Ms Seed: Yes, we are talking about something very different. The problem we've been confronting in our organization, and in many of the organizations that have been established in the last few years to oppose the anti-social programs that have been inflicted on the people of Ontario, is that the people of Ontario are essentially powerless. We elect a government, whatever political stripe it may have, and then we're asked to sit back and wait and simply accept whatever is handed down to us. This happens at the federal level, at the provincial level and at the municipal level, and we can't see that there are any solutions to the problems that are facing the people in Ontario that exclude the people themselves from participating in solving those problems.

The reforms that are being proposed at the present time further marginalize all the citizens of Ontario from participating in government. The changes that are needed in our society to enhance and improve the democracy that we have are changes that will go in the way of putting more power in the hands of the people. All that we see in the proposed legislation is going in the opposite direction.

We in Etobicoke Takes a Stand, and I can speak on behalf of many other organizations that have come into being in the same way as we have and are fighting for the same things, believe the people of Ontario have great capacity to solve the problems confronting them if they have the power to do so.

Mr Silipo: One of the arguments I've heard government members make is that this is a government that was democratically elected. They feel that somehow they have a mandate to bring about these changes. They're bringing it about through a democratic process of introducing the bill, even allowing committee hearings etc, and hence the whole thing is democratic. They say they can't understand why some people are calling this measure and the whole process anti-democratic. I wonder if you could comment on that as well.

Ms Seed: What we see is that this is democracy in crisis. If democracy, which is supposed to mean power in the hands of the people, puts into power a government which flouts the will of the people, and I'm not just speaking about the present government in Ontario but about the federal government and provincial governments right across the country who are flouting the will of the people repeatedly, then there's a very serious problem in that democracy, which is why our proposal goes to the heart of the matter.

We are proposing that the questions of governance at the municipal level should be in the hands of people's councils, where people can be elected by their peers, where they don't come to power and represent political parties but actually represent the citizens of the city, where there's accountability, where there are all the means by which people can exercise power and they are not relegated to simply being voting machines every four or five years.

1930

Mr Parker: I want to follow up on Mr Silipo's first question because I'm not sure you had a chance to give a full answer to it. I'm intrigued by your recommendation of people's councils, but I'd like you to give some greater definition to what you mean by it. I'd like to know how the members would be chosen, how the group would be constituted, specifically how it would operate and what sort of authorities it would have in your model.

Ms Seed: It's very interesting that people who are elected to govern the province don't have a concept of what it means for the people themselves to exercise power, which is precisely the problem we want to address. We have a very difficult time with the concept of a democracy in which candidates are selected by political parties. They do not necessarily have any contact with the constituents they purport to represent --

Mr Parker: I appreciate your concern and your dissatisfaction with the present system, but I'm interested in knowing a little bit more about what you propose as a replacement.

Ms Seed: What we propose is a mechanism which we ourselves can establish over the course of time. Our problem is that we are obstructed from doing that.

Mr Parker: Who is "we"?

Ms Seed: We, the people. Dave is a trade unionist. I work in an establishment in Etobicoke. We have in our organization seniors. We have people on welfare. All of them are rendered powerless by the situation that exists at present.

Mr Parker: Let's say you have the time that's required to develop the system you have in mind. What's it going to look like?

Ms Seed: The essential elements of what it will look like are that people who are nominated to stand for election will be people who are chosen from among the electors, who are known to the electors, who will represent them, who will be accountable to them, who will not be beholden to political parties but will be elected on the basis of implementing a program which addresses the needs of the people of Ontario. For example, right now we have a presentation --

The Chair: Sorry for interrupting. Unless Mr Crozier wants to use his two and a half minutes for the example, I have to interrupt and go to Mr Crozier's time.

Mr Bruce Crozier (Essex South): Not really, no, although it's along the same line. What then would prevent you, in forming these councils, from running outside of the political party system?

Ms Seed: Nothing prevents me from running except economic inability to do so, except the control of the entire apparatus of the media and all the organization required to run a campaign and to get elected being in the hands of the richest and the most powerful people in the country. Ordinary citizens in Canada do not have the means to exercise that right that formally exists to elect and be elected, and you sitting here know that better than I do.

Mr Crozier: Let me give you an example. I come from small urban and rural Ontario. When I decided to run for office, I did in fact select a party or I belonged to a party. But when it comes to the resources that you're talking about, I raised my own money; the party didn't give me any money. I got my own workers; the party didn't give me any workers. I went out and got friends and relatives and those who felt that I would be a good representative. Why can't you do that?

Ms Seed: If you run on the basis of fulfilling the needs of the vast majority of the people and making sure that the most vulnerable people in the society are protected, then your constituency is going to be the most vulnerable people in the society. Do you think they have the means to go up against the Liberal machine, the NDP machine, the Conservative machine, the media?

Mr Crozier: Yes, I do. All they have to do is vote for you.

The Chair: Thank you for coming forward and making a presentation today.

OLDER WOMEN'S NETWORK

The Chair: Would Grace Buller please come forward. Good evening and welcome to the committee. Before you begin, could you introduce yourselves for the benefit of Hansard.

Ms Grace Buller: This is Ethel Meade, who is the chair of our health issues committee, and this is Eileen Smith, who is chair of our housing committee of the Older Women's Network.

The Older Women's Network is an organization of approximately 400 women. Their objective is to work to overcome injustices and inequities for older women in the home, in the workplace and in society at large.

The Older Women's Network is opposed to amalgamation. In Bill 103, the electoral boundaries are changed drastically by creating 44 wards out of 22 ridings which were originally devised for effective representation at the federal level. This change will seriously weaken local democracy.

Historically, the local voter has been able to change politicians' minds, especially when political actions may affect local wellbeing. Witness the local citizens' stopping of the Spadina Expressway. Toronto has become one of the few livable cities in the world due to efforts of local citizenry in response to bureaucratic and harmful officialdom. The preservation of neighbourhoods is a high priority with most citizens and will not be possible without local political representation. No large urban centre has a viable, productive central core. Look at New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Mexico City and Cairo.

Arbitrary legislation appointing trustees who bypass elected representatives is harmful to the democratic concept and works against the wellbeing of all who live in Metro Toronto.

In addition to subverting political democracy, the government is placing the costs of health and social services on the backs of homeowners and tenants. Half of the costs of welfare, child care, nursing homes, homes for the aged, in-home nursing care and housekeeping services, as well as 100% of the costs of social housing, public health, ambulance services and homes providing special care, will now be downloaded on to municipalities.

There is a danger of privatization if the costs of nursing homes and homes for the aged are downloaded to the municipalities. If this happens, the quality of services provided will substantially deteriorate. The Older Women's Network is opposed to downloading these services to the municipalities. People are living longer, and to preserve their dignity and sense of wellbeing, we want to ensure that there is quality long-term care.

The government's projections are that demands for these services will increase 50% in the next four years. Downloading the costs of these services to the municipalities will cause a serious shortage of funds and a lack of services.

Downloading 100% of social housing on to municipalities will cause untold hardship. Many older people, especially women, live in social housing. Those municipalities with considerable social housing, such as Metro, would be affected to such an extent that their tax base could not carry the burden. These services must be maintained as a provincial responsibility. Municipalities will not be able to fund the costs of these services. The result will be either lowered standards or tax increases, and probably both of these.

The megacity proposal was not a part of the Common Sense Revolution election platform. On the contrary, speaking to a group of municipal officials in Fergus, Ontario, in 1994, then leader Mike Harris made the following statement: "There is no cost for a municipality to maintain its name and identity. Why destroy our roots and pride? I disagree with restructuring because it believes that bigger is better. Services always cost more in larger communities."

Why the turnaround in Bill 103?

The Older Women's Network recommends: (1) withdraw Bill 103 in the interests of municipal democracy and proper local representation; (2) restore full funding to all social programs and do not offload these costs to the municipalities; (3) abandon the 30% tax cut and use the revenue to fund the vital social programs which the municipalities administer.

1940

Ms Ethel Meade: Good evening. I just want to take a minute to re-emphasize one of the points that Grace has mentioned in her presentation, and that is the inevitable increase in the costs of long-term care. This has received very little attention in the discussions about downloading. I want to say very strongly that it is extremely threatening to people my age, to all the members of Older Women's Network, to anybody who is past 60, I would say, to think that municipalities are going to be asked to pay 50% of a cost that is going to increase and continue to increase for decades to come.

It's going to increase because people continue to live longer. There is a larger percentage of the population in the older age brackets today. It keeps increasing and it's going to increase because hospital restructuring is pushing post-acute care into the community. It means that people are discharged from acute care hospitals when they are still sick. The community services are expected to pick up this burden and they are being pushed extremely hard even now before any hospitals have been closed.

The home care services are having a very difficult time to keep up with the load that's being forced on them. They do keep up by spreading their resources thinner and thinner, and we have a situation where there's going to be competition between the needs of people coming out of hospital and the needs of the frail elderly who need more simple services. If there isn't enough money to go around, it perhaps will go to the people who are sick, but that will be at the expense of people who are maintaining themselves in their own homes only because they can get some service in the home that makes that possible.

All of this points to a steady increase in costs of long-term care, and a service that is being steadily increased to be loaded on to municipal budgets is a recipe for disaster. We do hope that this government will see fit to rethink this idea because it really needs rethinking.

Ms Eileen Smith: I hadn't planned on saying anything very much, but I wanted to point out that in Metro itself there are 100,000 subsidized rental units in the downtown core. The cost of this is $365 million to $370 million a year. In addition to this, each municipality will now have to set up its own administration for social housing, which is an additional burden on the municipality.

In the Metro area, all the buildings of the Metro Toronto Housing Authority are over 20 years old. They haven't built anything new since 1975. Now these are all in very bad condition and it's estimated that it will take $240 million to bring the housing up to standard. This is a burden on the municipalities that they simply cannot assume because they have no way of raising money other than direct taxation.

It is an increasing burden because there are more and more people requiring subsidized housing and it will simply be extremely difficult for them to keep up the pace.

Mrs Munro: Thank you very much for coming here this evening to give us your views. I want to come back to a sentence in the first page of your presentation where you said "The preservation of neighbourhoods is a high priority with most citizens." Certainly in the course of these hearings that is something we've heard over and over again.

I think it's important to see that when you look at the whole history of Toronto, it is a history of expansion. It seems that, regardless of the political configurations we've gone through over the almost 200 years of Toronto history, we have been able to maintain the identity of those communities, of those neighbourhoods. I just wondered if you could tell me why you think this bill poses a threat to the preservation of neighbourhoods.

Ms Buller: In replying to that, I would like to quote from Boom, Bust and Echo. This book has been on the bestseller list for about 10 weeks, maybe more than that. It refers to a particular study done by the Corporate Resources Group, an international personnel consulting company based in Geneva. It ranked 118 cities, with 42 measures of quality of life, and Canada was the only country with more than three cities in the top 20. Boston was the 30th. He goes on to say:

"Why do Canadian cities rank so high? Because they are small big cities rather than big big cities. All the cities near the top of the livability list are small big cities like Montreal, Vienna and Auckland. Big big cities like New York, Tokyo and Mexico City are near the bottom."

He says that the major cities do so well because "they are big enough to be lively and interesting and yet small enough to avoid the severe congestion, pollution and general unmanageability associated with the world's biggest urban centres."

Another reason he gives, the second reason, is that: "Canada's biggest cities still have healthy downtowns. It is not the suburbs that distinguish Toronto from Detroit, a once-great American city that became a symbol of urban decay. Detroit's suburbs are as handsome and livable as those of Toronto."

But the core of that city is despoiled and the core of every American city is in disrepair, and there's misery in every core of every city. This is what we want to avoid in the city of Toronto and in Scarborough and in North York, York and Etobicoke.

Mrs Munro: My question is simply that creating the community councils in this bill would address a lot of the concerns of people within a community. As well, these neighbourhoods that we are all conscious of have survived all these other political reconfigurations.

Mr Parker: I notice you quote Mike Harris's remark in the Fergus paper, and we've heard a lot of that. Using that quote in this context reflects a misunderstanding that has pervaded a number of presentations, so I just want to touch on it. In that case, in the Fergus quote, Mr Harris was referring to a potential amalgamation of then hitherto unrelated municipalities; the speculation at the time was that they might be brought together for the first time.

That's not what we're talking about in Bill 103. In Bill 103 we're talking about a municipality that is already in place. The 2.3 million people are already here. They are currently under an amalgamated government of sorts with Metro government, and the Metro level of government spends more than half of the municipal tax dollars, more than half of the municipal spending across the Metro area right now. But we have a subdivision of responsibilities between the Metro level and six local levels, and it's dealing with that reality that Bill 103 is directed at.

The question is, given that the 2.3 million people are already here and are not going to go away, what is the best structure we can come up with to deal with that current reality? At present, there is a vast --

The Chair: Mr Parker, could you end up quickly?

Mr Parker: I'll just wrap up my point quickly. There is a strong body of thought that the two-layer system we have now has outlived its usefulness and it's time to look at something new. Many recommendations have come forward that it's time to go for a single level, and that's what Bill 103 is addressing.

The Chair: Thank you, ladies, for coming forward and making your presentation to the committee this evening.

1950

TREVOR ELLIS

The Chair: Would Trevor Ellis please come forward. Good evening, Mr Ellis. Welcome to the committee.

Mr Trevor Ellis: My name is Trevor Ellis, and I've been a resident of Toronto for about 10 years. I'm here tonight to give you my views about the proposed amalgamation. The views I'm about to give have been shaped by what I've read in the media and heard on TV and also by talking to people, getting their sense of what they feel about the amalgamation, also going to a couple of amalgamation debates. Of all the viewpoints I've been able to gather, one common theme that goes through all of them is that there is a need for change, and the contention really arises over the process and the timing and the shape of that change.

Both the municipal and Metro governments agree that there are some financial savings to be had from some form of consolidation. Consolidation estimates vary from a minimum of $135 million from the mayors' proposal to a minimum of $187 million from Metro's proposal. In addition, the annual savings on top of these consolidation savings range from a minimum of $50 million in the mayors' proposal up to $300 million, as mentioned in the KPMG study. Of course, no one knows what the exact figures will be. However, whatever the source of the estimates, there's an indication that amalgamation will result in substantial cost savings.

The mayors and Metro are to be commended for coming up with alternatives to Bill 103, but my only question to them is, why did these alternatives take so long?

I believe the answer lies in the political paralysis that I think has affected our political process for a long time. Up until the present provincial government, there's not really been the political will to make tough decisions. We finally have a government that's willing to govern, not necessarily with a viewpoint to a future election but with a view to making decisions that make sense. In my view, amalgamation makes sense.

That being said, there are some valid concerns about Bill 103. Presently, many people are concerned about the mandate and the authority of the board of trustees. The role of the trustees is to oversee the major financial decisions made by the municipal governments. To me, it only seems prudent to have a team of financial professionals looking out for all the residents of the new city. If individual municipalities make major financial decisions in the next year without looking at the effect outside their own municipality, that's where the board of trustees will be most helpful. The broad authority of the board makes an open decision process all the more important.

People have every right to express their concern, and I think a forum such as this is a great way for the government to take in opposing viewpoints and make sure it does govern on behalf of all the citizens of this province.

The amalgamation process is not going to happen overnight. But the earlier we get a start on this process, the smoother the transition will be to the new city.

The transition team will be appointed by the Minister of Municipal Affairs, but I think it needs to have an open and inclusive consultation process, a process that keeps it in touch with the pulse of our community. Also, improving the transparency of its decision-making processes and making it more accountable to the new city will go a long way in reducing the opposition to this body.

The Minister of Municipal Affairs has spoken publicly about reserve funds. I was at an amalgamation meeting last week where he stated that the assets and liabilities of the old municipalities will become the assets and liabilities of the new council. For me, that's the end of the story in terms of reserve funds. But there are definitely concerns about reserve funds, and maybe a way to address these concerns is to enshrine these public comments into the legislation.

The opponents of amalgamation have announced the death of local democracy with the introduction of Bill 103. I think the people who have spoken here today and the people who have attended many of the amalgamation meetings are proof positive that Ontarians are willing to actively participate in the democratic process. Democracy is alive and well, and I think it will continue in the form of the neighbourhood councils. What better way to encourage active participation in the community than through the neighbourhood councils? I believe democracy will be lost if citizens miss the opportunity the councils present. Elected councillors will be able to receive direct input from their constituents. That, to me, is democracy in action.

As a resident of Toronto, I've come to appreciate what makes Toronto special. The mix of cultures, languages and neighbourhoods is really a source of strength, and a new Toronto will give a legal name to a city that is already in existence. Whether you live in Scarborough, North York or Etobicoke, you feel a part of Metropolitan Toronto.

After amalgamation, the people living within the new Toronto will be the same. The physical location of unique areas and communities will still be the same. It is the people in the community who really create the atmosphere and the character of a community.

Amalgamation is about change, and change is essential to the continuing quality of life we have come to enjoy in Metropolitan Toronto. But one thing I've noticed is absent from this discussion about the amalgamation is the element of trust. I think we have to start trusting our elected politicians. For far too long citizens have had a cynical, sceptical view of politicians because they have often promised much and delivered little.

What we are seeing now with this government is that our politicians are doing what they said they would do. Reducing the size of government is not popular, especially among people who will be directly affected, and I'm thinking of the municipal politicians. It's not popular among groups who feel they will lose their special access to municipal politicians.

Difficult decisions are not always popular but I feel they have to be made. I'd like to commend this government for moving forward in trying to create a better future for us all.

Mr Sergio: Mr Ellis, thank you for making a very interesting presentation to our committee here. Normally, when a government makes changes, some new proposal, some new legislation, you would think that is done keeping in mind the benefit to the taxpayers, right?

Mr Ellis: Yes.

Mr Sergio: Do you think this bill, the way it's presented, would benefit the average taxpayer?

Mr Ellis: I think it will. As I mentioned earlier in my presentation, both the mayors and Metro agree there are savings to be had and those savings will of course assist the property owners and the taxpayers of Metropolitan Toronto.

Mr Sergio: You mentioned that democracy is alive and well. Others before you said democracy is in crisis. Why would you say that democracy is alive and well and others say the opposite? Do you think it's because of the process?

Mr Ellis: From my standpoint, the fact that we have an open forum like this and amalgamation debates indicates to me that people have an outlet for what they would like to say, and the fact that we can have amendments to the bill means there's a way for them to influence.

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Mr Sergio: If we're going to have amendments that will make a difference, that's another story. You're right, we could, but whether that is going to happen is another story. We have no information with respect to these supposed savings, that this bill is going to save money and reduce taxes. I don't have any information; we don't have any information as a committee. I don't think the minister has the information. If he does, do you think he should provide that to the committee and to you people?

Mr Ellis: Looking at the mayors' report and Metro government's report, they both indicate there are savings. If the government does have information it feels would be helpful to help the populace make up their own minds, yes, it should be released.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr Ellis, for coming forward and making a presentation this evening.

STEVE KERPER

The Chair: Would Steve Kerper please come forward? Good evening, Mr Kerper. Welcome to the committee.

Mr Steve Kerper: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for allowing me the opportunity of speaking here this evening. As you know, my name is Steve Kerper. I'd like you to be aware of the fact that I've been practising real estate sales in Metropolitan Toronto for the last 29 years.

Over these years, I've had the good fortune of helping many families with their housing needs throughout Metropolitan Toronto. It has been my experience that families in most cases purchase their home based on the neighbourhood it was located in and not necessarily the municipality.

I have found that the buying process starts with the determination that the family may need to locate in the east, west, north or central part of Metro, and then narrowing it down to a particular neighbourhood.

I have also had the experience of helping numerous employees of companies that had relocated their operations from Montreal to Metropolitan Toronto. As far as these families were concerned, they were moving to Toronto, not to one of the six municipalities that make up Metro. Their understanding was clear that Toronto was all of Metro, and when they found their new home in a particular neighbourhood that just happened to be in one of the six municipalities, that was merely accepted; it certainly didn't make any difference as far as they were concerned, for they clearly understood they were moving to Toronto.

Today when I receive calls from realtors asking me to help a family that is relocating, these calls may come from as far away as the east coast or the west coast of Canada or from anywhere in between; it can even be as close as a city only an hour's drive from Metropolitan Toronto, or for that matter, a call can come from anywhere in the US. The fact is, these realtors and buyers identify the new destination as Toronto, meaning the entire Metro area; very seldom, if ever, do they refer to the other five municipalities.

They do not know or really care where the artificial political boundaries are. I believe our current artificial political boundaries, to those outside of Metro, are meaningless. I'm convinced that unifying Metro into one city will only recognize the reality that already exists.

Unification will further benefit me. It will make it much easier to address the needs of my buyers by having one municipal government to contact as it relates to all the various regulations that affect housing instead of the current seven governments with all their many differences.

I want to share with you some of the examples of how the current two-tier government affects the community I live in. I live in the neighbourhood of Bayview Village in North York. Our neighbourhood, during its 40 years of existence, has had a very active and large association. I have personally taken an active role serving on the executive and have taken my turn as its president.

Over the years we have addressed many issues that have affected our community. Our relationship with the various individual elected representatives at all levels of government has always been an open and healthy one but oftentimes frustrating. Let me explain why at times it was frustrating by giving you a few examples.

The issues that have and will continue to affect us mostly will be developments around the community and the traffic it creates. The current issues are the Sheppard subway and the development it will generate. By and large, most members in our community are not opposed to these upcoming changes, but the frustrating part is having to deal with them at two levels of government. Our questions and concerns sometimes could not be addressed by one or the other elected representative because it was not in their jurisdiction. For example, is it a Metro road or is it a North York road? Is it a Metro park or a North York park? Which level of government is responsible for traffic studies for a particular development or traffic flow or traffic signal lights?

Let me share with you a small and silly example of frustration caused by our two levels of government. A few years ago our community decided it would be of benefit to our residents if we had a bicycle rack installed near a bus stop. We did a lot of work in dealing with the idea. We researched the various products and priced it. We put our proposal forward, whereby we would purchase the bicycle rack and also be prepared to pay for the installation. You could say it was presented to our elected representatives on a silver platter. After many months of frustration, the idea died because North York and Metro could not agree on which level of government should be responsible for the installation -- mind you, at no cost to the taxpayers.

I very much look forward to the day when I can hold one elected representative accountable for municipal issues instead of the current political games and turf wars that have been known to happen.

Another change I'm fully supportive of is a fairer property assessment system. This is long overdue. This is a change that various levels of government over the years have tried to deal with but have not succeeded, the most recent being the attempt by Metro as a result of trying to appease the various municipalities within Metro and the special interest groups. The plan was so watered down that it become almost meaningless. In the end, the previous provincial government would not approve the Metro plan and we are right back with an unfair property tax system.

This provincial government's proposal allows for the tools by municipal governments to implement the changes fairly and reasonably, which I'm fully in support of. However, I do have a major concern; that is, we must have only one municipal government to deal with property taxation. To have anything but -- to have two levels of government or to have several local governments -- would only invite disaster.

I will conclude my remarks by stating that this government is doing what it has promised Ontarians. The message that the taxpayers of Ontario have been sending our politicians is less government and less taxation. I believe that for the first time in a long time the government is delivering what the majority wants. Reducing our municipal government from two levels and 106 politicians to 44 and one level of government with one mayor and one voice is most definitely the right thing to do. A much fairer property tax system is long overdue. Bringing logic to school boards and reducing out-of-classroom expenses will benefit not only our students but also the taxpayers. The issue of who pays for and delivers other services such as social services I leave to other experts, but I feel strongly that if constructively approached, a fair and acceptable solution can be found.

I urge this government to get on with the task of reorganizing our province and Metro. I appeal to all Ontarians and most specifically the residents of Metro and our municipal politicians to calmly and constructively deal with these changes for the benefit of all.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Kerper, for your presentation. You've effectively used up your allotted time.

Mr Kerper: Good. I just sold a house too.

The Chair: Good poise in the middle of your presentation; I saw that go off. I want to thank you on behalf of the committee for coming forward this evening.

Mr Hastings: Mr Chair, unanimous consent to ask Mr Kerper a question?

The Chair: I hear a no.

Mr Kerper: Thank you for not granting it.

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TORONTO HISTORICAL BOARD

The Chair: Would Marion Joppe please come forward? Good evening and welcome to the committee.

Dr Marion Joppe: I'm Dr Marion Joppe and I am the chair of the Toronto Historical Board. With me tonight is another board member, Mr Chris Makuch, as well as two staff from the historical board, George Waters, the general manager, and Marcia Cuthbert, who is with the historical preservation staff.

In just a few more days, on March 6, the city of Toronto will be 163 years old. If Bill 103 is passed a few more months after that, the historic city of Toronto will be extinguished.

On July 1 of this year, the Toronto Historical Board itself will celebrate its 37th year. Established in 1960 by Toronto city council under special enabling legislation, the board was created originally to manage the museums owned by the city of Toronto. Today we operate five vibrant, city-owned heritage attractions: historic Fort York, the Marine Museum of Upper Canada, MacKenzie House, Colborne Lodge and Spadina, offering educational programs, fostering civic pride and bringing tourist dollars into our community.

Toronto has been a leader in Ontario in the preservation of our heritage. In 1967, a full seven years before province-wide heritage legislation existed, the city of Toronto, with the strong support of its citizens, obtained special legislation enabling it to encourage the preservation of the city's unique identity through designation of properties of architectural or historical value or interest.

With the eventual passing of the Ontario Heritage Act in 1975, city council by resolution asked the Toronto Historical Board to continue its role in the preservation of our treasured built heritage by taking on the duties of a local architectural conservation advisory committee, or LACAC, in addition to its museums role.

Since that time, on the recommendation of the board and with widespread citizen endorsement, city council, in accordance with the heritage policies in its official plan, has designated over 450 individual heritage properties as well as three heritage conservation districts, making them eligible for the protection, albeit limited, provided under the Ontario Heritage Act.

Continuing with its leadership role in heritage preservation, in 1987 the city of Toronto obtained special legislation enabling it to exert greater control over the demolition of designated heritage properties than that provided under the Ontario Heritage Act. Today nine other municipalities in Ontario have obtained strengthened heritage demolition control powers similar to Toronto's, based upon the legislation originated by the Toronto Historical Board.

Even more significantly, the city's legislation has been adopted as a model for inclusion in the long-awaited new Ontario Heritage Act which, we are advised, the Minister of Culture is hopeful to be in a position to proceed with as soon as the legislative agenda allows.

Which brings me, now that I have made these necessarily brief introductory remarks about the board's contribution to the quality of life in Toronto, Ontario's capital, to the subject before your committee: Bill 103, the City of Toronto Act, 1996.

One cannot but remark upon the contrast shown between the amount of preparation and consultation put into developing the new but unfortunately still pending Ontario Heritage Act and the lack of information and prior consultation with the affected parties regarding Bill 103. As our mayor, Barbara Hall, stated in addressing your committee, "With legislation as sweeping as Bill 103, the public would normally be presented with a carefully prepared white paper which explained the government's proposals." Instead we, both board and staff, who have had to examine the impact of this proposal on heritage have found the legislation to be incomplete, with essential fragments of the puzzle being merely alluded to, and not always consistently, in press releases or flyers.

To give a specific example, the six community councils and the geographic areas they will deal with are nowhere to be found in the bill, yet these bodies, according to a ministry press release, "may" be making final decisions on rezoning applications. The rezoning stage is the very point at which the fate of heritage buildings is often irrevocably determined, yet there is no mention anywhere of how the crucial heritage input, traditionally provided by the LACAC, will be factored into these decisions. This situation must be rectified. The position of heritage in the decision-making process must be assured before proceeding with any amalgamation.

The legislation does say there will be neighbourhood committees of council-appointed volunteers. The bill makes these committees mandatory but does not indicate how many there will be. Ministry materials indicate that there will be at least 44 of these neighbourhood committees, one for each of the 44 wards, and that they will be advising the six as yet only sketchily outlined community councils.

Local community input into heritage is critically important, yet it would be ludicrous to suggest that LACACs become the heritage equivalent of the proposed neighbourhood committees and that the number of LACACs in the urban area of Metro be increased from the existing six to 44. Equally impractical, and even harmful, would be the idea of giving a sole individual on each of the 44 neighbourhood committees the responsibility for advising on applications affecting heritage properties in the particular ward. Our heritage is too important for its protection to be fragmented to such an extent.

Local architectural conservation advisory committees are mandated under the Ontario Heritage Act, yet the province has been silent as to how heritage will be protected under Bill 103. We need assurance that heritage will be protected before entering into any amalgamation.

According to the bill, a provincially appointed transition team will hold public consultations on the functions to be assigned to these neighbourhood committees and the method of choosing their members and on the rationalization and integration of municipal services across the new city. But the transition team, even if it were to be appointed as early as April, has been given so many other responsibilities, from establishing the new city's organizational structure to hiring the new department heads and other employees, that one wonders how it can complete its tasks and give sufficient thought to the essential matter of protection of our heritage before the January 1, 1998, deadline.

Matters which need to be carefully considered include combined LACAC and museum functions, or separate; an arm's-length body to advocate for heritage, or heritage within a civic department; a heritage body with its own staff, or support staff from the municipal department; a heritage body reporting directly to full council, to community councils, or both?

The Toronto Historical Board must be a part of any such discussions.

The Chair: Excuse me, Dr Joppe. I apologize for interrupting, but you're closing in on the final minute of your presentation. I just want you to know that in case there's something you really want to emphasize in the last little bit.

Dr Joppe: Okay. I'm going to skip to the part where we talk about what the board has recommended be considered.

The board emphasizes the important role heritage plays in the economy as well as in the quality of life of the community.

The board has expressed its concern about the pressure heritage has been under for a number of years, with continuing reductions in funding and prolonged delays in the passing of effective new heritage legislation.

The board urges the government to provide adequate time and information to allow for proper consideration of the role of heritage in any future form of governance in the Metro area.

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The board asks the province to ensure that heritage continues to play a central quality-of-life role within the city's communities and neighbourhoods.

The board asks the government to ensure that should the bill be enacted, adequate time and opportunities are provided with the transition team to ensure that heritage matters are thoroughly considered and strongly positioned.

The board also requests that should the transition team be appointed, it be instructed by the province that in determining heritage management structures and procedures, appropriate consideration and recognition be given to the many variations in the extent, magnitude and nature of the heritage resources throughout the areas of the new city and of the history of their management by the local communities, including the important role of both staff and community volunteers.

Last, the board requests the province to ensure that the Toronto Historical Board is consulted before any of the proposed changes affecting the future of heritage in the city of Toronto are made.

In essence, as our mayor has declared: Slow down and get it right.

The Chair: Thank you very much for coming forward and making your presentation to the committee this evening.

ROY WINTER

The Chair: Would Roy Winter please come forward? Good evening, Mr Winter. Welcome to the committee.

Mr Roy Winter: Thank you very much. Excuse my nervousness. There seem to be so many details that everyone is trying to keep track of.

I am in favour of the plans to amalgamate the current seven governments of Metro Toronto into one city of Toronto government. I feel that the economic gains are self-evident, with the reduction of the total workforce and the duplication of services that now exist. I am not sure if the dollar figures that have been mentioned will be reached; however, savings will be achieved and probably in some ways that were not thought of initially.

While I feel that the economic implications would be reason enough to amalgamate during these times of record deficits, another compelling reason is the common identity we all share. We are all people of Toronto. In my case, it is the neighbourhood of Don Mills, not the artificial city of North York.

A direct benefit of a 2.3-million-person single city is the possibilities that exist for helping to solve common problems, problems which affect the city as a whole. For example, in very short order it seems that the city of Toronto will have the responsibility for our welfare costs placed upon our property taxes. This will lead to the unparalleled opportunity presenting itself for a unified urban centre having open neighbourhood discussions to help resolve an issue that has been seen as a provincial matter for years. It will soon become evident to all ratepayers that a unified voice will help affect the costs of the social services we deliver to the members of our own neighbourhoods who are in need of them.

Dealing with such a sensitive issue on neighbourhood committees and community councils will allow Toronto to arrive at an equitable and compassionate solution. I believe this process will cause our welfare system to change for the better, because it will be in every ratepayer's direct interest for it to succeed. There is a good chance that, as a result, our property taxes will drop.

The amalgamation of Metro Toronto and the downloading of assorted costs for services will lead to a better provincial financial picture and a more equal system of dealing with different city departments, especially for businesses, which currently must wade through seven different bureaucracies.

We will go through a period of turmoil while all the necessary changes are implemented, that is for sure. However, I believe there will be much greater interest and participation in city politics as a result. This participation, in the form of neighbourhood committees, will bring more people together to discuss the issues that affect them. These neighbourhood committees must be structured in a commonsense manner and a system must be devised to show that their input can make a real difference. To block their voices would be a sign that this new system is failing. I am sure that most pieces of this new puzzle will be in place and that we will accept it as a good system within two years. That's about all I have to say.

The Chair: Thank you very much. Plenty of time for questions.

Mr Len Wood (Cochrane North): I don't know if I'll use all the time. Thank you very much for bringing your presentation forward, Mr Winter.

Last week I spent a number of days in my riding, which is in northern Ontario. One of the concerns there was that Bill 103 and Bill 104, a number of these bills, are all linked together, and in order to save money, thousands of people are going to have either lose their jobs or be replaced by lower-paid workers. When you take the spinoff effect of all these bills, the city of Toronto, I understand, just with amalgamation is going to have lay off about 4,500 workers to have dollar savings. If you multiply that with Bill 104, people are telling me it's an attack on unionized workers right across the province, because what happens with Bill 103 in the city of Toronto is exactly what's going to happen with Bill 104.

Municipalities are being told now in northern Ontario, and I'm sure it's happening in other areas, that if you don't restructure -- the status quo is not good enough -- you're going to have to get together with five or six other municipalities, join together, lay off your town administrators, lay off some of your workforce and get together or you're not going to get a single penny of any restructuring dollars that have been set in emergency funds. People were telling me, last week when I was around there, that the disruption could mean 100,000 unionized workers in this province would lose their jobs and either be replaced by non-unionized workers or their wages brought down to a lower standard.

What effect do you think this is going to have on the city of Toronto and all the province if this is the intention of Mike Harris and his government?

Mr Winter: It sounds like a very valid concern for all these members who are in a position that they may find themselves in quite soon. However, I just managed to work my way through a real-life industry layoff and a new job, and these people will also find that their jobs are not guaranteed, as mine was not guaranteed. How will it affect them on an individual basis? I don't know whether among a large group of people like that they will be given the opportunity for the strong to come forward. They probably will and some of them will improve themselves through that process.

I don't feel that anyone is in this to lay off 100,000 people for no reason. I feel that the way the economy has been -- we've all seen private industry and how they have had to compete. Is this a type of competing in public industry? I don't think so, but in a way it is competing with the taxpayers for their respect. While there will be many stories of hardship, these stories exist all the time. In the end, I feel that when it is all added up, we will be a better province.

Mr Len Wood: So you think that we're going to have to go through a lot pain and suffering before all this is completed right across the province? Bill 103 is only the beginning. They've just turned over one stone. From what I can understand, and the parliamentary assistant is there and he was at ROMA and he's saying: "Look, if you don't do something -- the status quo is not good enough in northern Ontario, in southern Ontario or wherever. The status quo is not good enough and you won't get any dollars."

The only way they are going to save is by firing the town administrators, get together and contract out and whatever. The disruption that's taking place there is huge when you're thinking of unemployment at 10%; it's just massive. Is Ontario ready for that type of disruption?

Mr Winter: I take it you're against the amalgamation.

Mr Len Wood: I'm against throwing thousands of people out of work for no reason. If that means I'm against amalgamation, yes, I would say I'm against it.

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Mr Winter: I don't believe that people are thrown out of work permanently. I believe there will be all the turmoils we are all aware are already happening to all communities with industry and government workers. I'm sure everyone who is a government worker, unionized or not, looking at the prospect of being put in a position where their department is considered to be no longer economically viable, or whatever the case may be, certainly will not feel this is a good idea, but I feel that the province as a whole and Canada as a country are strong and wealthy enough to survive this upheaval. The province is making drastic changes, and through change comes opportunity as well as suffering. In the end I feel we will be a better province.

The economic position that the current government found when it took office hopefully will never recur or be at the level it is now, and hopefully we can take some of those dollars that we're paying in interest and put them towards future civic programs which will hire more civic employees when we have cash to pay them instead of paying debt.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr Winter, for coming forward this evening to make your presentation to the committee.

SIMON RICHARDS

The Chair: Would Simon Richards please come forward. Good evening, Mr Richards. Welcome to the committee.

Mr Simon Richards: Thank you very much. I'd like to thank the people I was pestering to get a hearing at this committee, I appreciate the opportunity to use my voice before it's taken away from me.

Hi guys, ma'am. It's nice to get a chance to talk at you. I don't want to speak about amalgamation. I want to talk about Bill 103, and I make the distinction because I don't believe that Bill 103 is about amalgamation. I think if it were about amalgamation, then you would be listening to people like Jane Jacobs, who is one of the pre-eminent urban planners on the planet, you would be listening to the eloquent and reasoned concerns of my fellow citizens who have appeared before you as their elected representatives, but that would be if it were about amalgamation, and I don't believe it is.

I think that this bill is about seizing power and about stealing my voice, and I'm not talking personally here. Two and a half million people are not going to be able, because of Bill 103, to share in the shaping of the vision that creates our city, be it mega or otherwise. That's what I think the bill is about. Maybe I'm wrong, so perhaps you'd help me out on this.

You've got 106 elected representatives now -- that's correct? -- and we're moving to 44 elected representatives, so that is a diminution of representation, is it not? That's diminished representatives? Yes? I should say I agree with the idea of fewer politicians; I disagree with the idea of fewer elected representatives.

We live in a system that is a representative democracy. Diminished representation seems to me to be diminished democracy. Are you guys with me or what? Okay. Then we end up getting to elect 45 representatives, but these 45 representatives don't have any power. They're not responsible to us. They can't shape the city the way the citizens desire. They have to answer to this transition team. Is that correct? That's not correct?

The Chair: Mr Richards, the time is yours to give a presentation. If you'd like to give it up to the government caucus to ask you questions or whatever, that's yours to decide. The idea is that it's your time to make a presentation to the committee.

Mr Richards: Thank you very much, but I can speak to these guys, can't I?

The Chair: Yes.

Mr Richards: And are they allowed to speak to me? I don't mind about the 10 minutes, you know.

The Chair: It's not a running question-and-answer period, though, is my point, sir; it's a presentation period.

Mr Richards: Thank you. The authority of the transition team supersedes the authority of my elected representatives, according to this bill, it seems to me. Right? Nod. Shake. Shrug.

Mr Ford: It's to supervise the transition period.

Mr Richards: But their authority supersedes the elected representatives, right? For instance, if I elect a representative and I want that representative to create more shelters, we'll say, if that doesn't match with the fiscal constraints, or whatever, of the transition team, then the transition team is not going to allow it. That seems to me to be what the bill is saying.

Mr Parker: Show us where.

Mrs Munro: Do you want us to respond?

Mr Richards: Yes, I'm fine with the 10 minutes. That's all I've got.

The Chair: Mr Richards, if you want to lay out a bunch of questions and then leave the time for answers, that's fine, but it's not a running dialogue, a back-and-forth question-and-answer period.

Mr Richards: Okay, fair enough.

My major concern is that the transition team's authority supersedes, for me, fewer representatives so that my voice is weaker, that we have more people, fewer representatives. To me, this seems to be taking away my democracy and the democracy of my fellow citizens. I'm really concerned about that.

I'd like to know why you people feel it's necessary to silence me and my fellow citizens. I'd like to know why you people want to deny 2.5 million people the right to shape the city they live in without having to go through this appointed group. I'd really like to know why you folks are so anxious to be known as the group of individuals that has suspended democracy in this country. It seems to me like the Common Sense Revolutionary junta. I just feel ripped off. I think you folks are stealing my democracy.

I think you folks have probably got people in your family who fought in the last couple of wars, and one of the rallying cries of those wars was preserving democracy. It seems to me that you folks are trampling all over that legacy. I've come to these hearings, I've watched you all, and you're doing or saying nothing that makes me think in any way that you're not about stealing my democratic voice.

I guess if you really believe in this bill the way it is, you'll pass it through and we'll all know you for what you are. I think if you disagree with this bill in any way, then you really must change it. I don't know what you're up against. I don't know who the boss is. It doesn't seem to be the people. I don't know if you actually are going to have, if you'll pardon me, the courage and the integrity not to put this bill through until there are major amendments.

I think the opposition parties have to be responsible enough to nullify all the anti-democratic legislation this government is putting through and that when you come to power, because of course you will come to power -- that's politics -- you don't try to benefit from any of this power grab that is going on from this party.

What's the difference between Mike Harris and Slobodan Milosevic? The number of people on the streets, and that will change if this type of thing keeps going on.

Mr Ford: Different times.

Mr Richards: Do you really believe so, sir?

Mr Ford: Yes, sir, I do, very much so.

Mr Richards: Did Milosevic not take away the people who had been elected, saying, "No, they are not elected"? Is that not what's happening here? We've got this board of trustees in place that has got say; We've got this transition team in place that has the final say. Who are they?

Mr Ford: It's based on the strangulation of a massive debt that we have.

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Mr Richards: It's not a city debt.

Mr Ford: It's a debt that causes the cities, towns, everybody --

The Chair: Mr Richards, you have a minute remaining if you'd like to sum up or pass the question off. Either way is fine.

Mr Richards: No. I'm finished. Go ahead, please.

Mrs Munro: Mr Richards, I'd just like to comment because you've asked some extremely important questions. The first thing I would like to ask you is if you believe that the current structure of Metropolitan Toronto government is the one we should stay with. I want to assume an answer here because I only have one minute. If you say yes, okay, that's fine. If you say no, I'd like to suggest to you that when the mayors decided to get together and talk, they came up with over $200 million in savings. They also reduced the size of representation to I believe 48 councillors. So those mayors' plan then was to go to 48 councillors instead of what's in Bill 103, which would be 44. I just want to put that in context. In Bill 103 there's one mayor. Obviously in the mayors' proposal there are six mayors.

The Chair: Mrs Munro, you'll have to make it quick, or we can leave it at that and he can try to answer in the little time he has left.

Mr Richards: I think the problems we have in Toronto and in the surrounding regions are nowhere near as great as your party is making out. I think you're trying to pay off the provincial debt on the backs of the cities, and I think that you are not caring a damn about the shape of the cities that the people of these cities have built over all of these years. I think you're creating a problem to do something else and you're saying: "We're going to screw the cities anyway. To hell with that." For me, amalgamation shmalgamation. I don't really care if it's done properly. It doesn't seem to be being done properly.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr Richards. We've come to the end of your allotted time. Thank you for coming forward to make your presentation today.

JANE PEPINO

The Chair: Would Jane Pepino please come forward. Welcome, Ms Pepino, to the committee.

Ms Jane Pepino: Thank you very much, Mr Chairman and members of the committee. My name is Jane Pepino and I have been a resident of the city of Toronto since 1965. With my family I have always lived south of St Clair Avenue, within walking distance of Yonge Street. As a result, we very much consider ourselves urban dwellers firmly rooted in downtown Toronto.

This evening I bring to this committee not only a fierce attachment to my home in downtown Toronto, but also 23 years' experience as a lawyer practising land development, planning and municipal law. In that regard, over this time I have worked with and appeared before each of the planning boards, planning committees, planning advisory committees, planning and development committees, committees of the whole, call it what you will, of councils for each of the local governments in Metro as well as of Metro itself, and I recognize two members here this evening before whom, in previous lives, I have pleaded my cause from time to time.

Given that I have also acted in virtually every other local and regional government within the GTA, as well as in a variety of local governments not within regional governments across this province, I have a basis of comparison, and I believe a good working knowledge, of the various models of local government. It's from this perspective and with this knowledge that I appear this evening to add my voice to the many who have already appeared before these hearings in support of Bill 103.

It is my firm belief that this action on the part of the provincial government is not only necessary but also long overdue. Without the critical mass, the strength and the efficiency that would flow from an amalgamated government, the geographic area presently known as Metro will become increasingly less competitive within the GTA, as well as provincially and internationally. This can only detract from our quality of life in Toronto and each of its present constituent municipalities because we have had to rely on regional economic strength. That loss of strength will in turn lead to the decline of the area generally, and particularly the present city of Toronto and the smaller, weaker city of York and borough of East York. The hollowing out of downtown Toronto, in my judgement, would be the result.

I believe also that amalgamation is necessary because Metro and its constituent local municipalities are effectively gridlocked. They have been unable to produce the collective focus and commitment to advance that area which others already see as and call Toronto. The minute you go more than 60 miles from this building, everyone thinks of everything within 20 miles of this building as Toronto. Within the seven local governments in Metropolitan Toronto, its six mayors, one chair and 99 councillors, no cooperative action has been possible. Our municipalities and their mainly full-time politicians have grown overprotective of their fiefdoms and have been unwilling and therefore unable to make any changes. In my opinion, the changes introduced in Bill 103 have been long overdue and certainly would not have been initiated by the municipalities themselves.

You've heard of the number of studies that stretch back to virtually the date of creation of Metro Toronto itself, but even in the most recent two years, the inability of the various municipalities to agree on a workable plan is proof enough of the necessity for provincial action. You've heard of the Golden task force, the GTA mayors' and chairs' seven-point plan, the Crombie recommendations or even the cobbled-together suggestions by the six local municipalities. Suffice to say, however, there has been no consensus among the affected municipalities as to strategies for much-needed reform and what everyone recognizes is necessary: working together.

Another recent example of the inability of local municipalities within Metro to work cooperatively was the wasteful and petty competition between the city of Scarborough and the city of Toronto on property tax assessment. You will recall that a number of years ago Scarborough appealed a large number of city of Toronto assessments to buttress its argument that property tax reform was long overdue. My property, my home, was just one of those targeted by Scarborough. In addition to wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars of Scarborough taxpayers' money to pursue these vexatious appeals, the city of Toronto wasted hundreds of thousands of taxpayers' dollars to defend against them.

The simple fact is that property tax reform is also long overdue. Inequities do exist among and between the various local municipalities. However, it would only be in a unified city of Toronto that the province could undertake the necessary property tax reforms in confidence that they would be administered in an evenhanded fashion and that support services that they support would be delivered equitably across that broader geographic area. I am prepared to have my property taxes adjusted, since I am firmly of the belief that a unified city of Toronto will provide more cost-effective government and be a more effective economic presence within the national and international economies. The more competitive we become, the more able we will be to fund our services without resort to only property taxes as a base.

I need to say this in response perhaps only to the previous speaker: Municipalities are merely creatures of statute. They have no powers beyond those which are derived from provincially enacted legislation. For opponents of Bill 103 to suggest that the province's legislative process regarding Bill 103 somehow supplants local democracy is to totally ignore the legal and structural realities of local government in Canada, which are based on British law dating back to Magna Carta. Municipalities in Ontario are not Athenian city-states gaining power from the will of the people; they are instead incorporated by acts of provincial Parliament for the purpose of providing for various matters within provincial jurisdiction that the province has decided are better delivered not by the province, but below.

I have confidence that a combination of careful consideration of implementation and the stabilization of both the transitional and permanent reserve funds will ensure that the availability and quality of community services remain high. The present discussions regarding restructuring of funding must have as their primary goal the maintenance of the quality of life for the new unified Toronto, including support for all its neighbourhoods, including the downtown.

The result then of a smaller, unified city council will be to create a council that can devote its energies to better decisions, creating a focus and vision for the city to keep it livable, to keep it competitive and to keep its place as one of the top international cities. It is also only through the critical mass and scale which the unified city will deliver that the present Metro, which is essentially a no-growth or slow-growth area, will maintain any clout as against either existing or also reformed regional governments in the rapidly growing 905 area. I remind you only of Vaughan's slogan, "A little ahead" or "A little above Toronto."

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Mr Hastings: "The city above Toronto."

Ms Pepino: Thank you. "The city above Toronto." I resent that, but it's a sign of the kind of critical mass that Toronto will only benefit from.

For all the reasons that made Metro Toronto such a success when instituted, the citizens of a unified Toronto will benefit from having a single and powerful voice to maintain the status and profile of Toronto across the country and beyond.

The other issue I would like to address briefly is that of neighbourhood and community councils. Laudable though the concept of these grass-roots councils may be, I have a concern that, as the transition team establishes the rules under which they operate, they not become formalized into more levels of regulation or control than the various processes presently in place for matters of zoning and official plan amendment. The entire thrust of the Red Tape Review Commission and the recent amendments to the Planning Act has been to streamline and speed up the planning process. By formalizing neighbourhood councils, who may then have to report to community councils, who in turn would then provide a report to the council of a unified city, the potential exists to overly complicate the planning process in the new city of Toronto alone.

Neighbourhood committees, in my judgement, should be kept entirely voluntary and only advisory in nature, similar to the way organized ratepayer associations operate at the moment, giving input to planners and local councillors on matters which affect their particular neighbourhoods. They should not become formalized such as the appointed planning advisory board which presently exists in the city of Toronto but only in the city of Toronto as a body dealing with planning issues if to do so would put them as an additional body to what I presume will be committees of the new council such as planning and development or land use committees.

Having said that, I certainly welcome the concept of one single planning process for applications for lands within what is now Metro. At the present time, the single shared characteristic of each municipality's planning process is its absolute difference from that of its neighbour. This is burdensome, unreasonable, and runs counter to the goal of ensuring accessibility to everyone to this most important process.

In conclusion, it is my belief that Bill 103 is simply the next step in a reasonable evolution in municipal governance which will enable the area known around the world as Toronto to be stronger and more competitive. The whole truly will be greater than the sum of its parts. The most important job then rests with the citizens to elect 44 representatives to this council who will understand and grasp the benefits of this new structure to strengthen Toronto's presence. Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms Pepino, for your presentation. You've exhausted your allotted time, and I want to thank you on behalf of the committee for coming forward this evening.

DAVE FORESTELL

The Chair: Would Dave Forestell please come forward. Good evening, Mr Forestell. Welcome to the committee.

Mr Dave Forestell: Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to address you today. As a Toronto resident, I was obviously quite concerned when I read flyers that foretold the end of local democracy in Toronto. As a young citizen I was also quite concerned when I saw what some people's opinion of local democracy was.

After attending several town hall meetings, it became clear that it was not local democracy that was being practised by opponents of this bill but rather very vocal hypocrisy, and it was coming from people claiming to represent me, a grade 11 student and a young citizen. Rather than heckling back at meetings, however, I decided to exercise my right to local democracy and to follow the process that has always been used by the city and by the province: to give a deputation.

I'm strongly in favour of Bill 103, the proposed amalgamation of the Toronto area's seven governments into one. As someone who will soon be entering the workplace and soon be paying taxes, I want to know that I will be entering a workforce where the environment is suitable to private sector job creation and has a fair and equitable tax system. An equitable system of government is what is really needed: a system of government where both ends of a street are run by the same government, where a street is run by the same government as its sidewalks, a government whereby different rules and regulations will not apply when you cross the street.

The controversy during the summer over smoking in restaurants really crystallizes the issue here in several respects. First, you have a situation where someone may enter a restaurant on one side of Victoria Park and smoke. However, when they cross the street, that option's no longer available. This is unfair to customers and it's unfair to restaurateurs. This kind of inequity is also the reason growth in Toronto has stagnated. To create an environment suitable to attracting business, you cannot have confusing and contradicting bylaws across a fragmented area of artificial boundaries. The NDP have always been strong supporters of employment equity, so it surprises me that they don't support equitable opportunities to create employment.

Second, you have a very controversial issue with a large number of Torontonians vehemently opposed to plans the government is making. Why is there no referendum on the smoking issue? Why are there no signs and buttons? Why isn't the city distributing information to residents to let them know about these changes? Because at the time it's not convenient. It would look bad on the city to have residents know how ludicrous the idea of banning a legal substance was. So we hear nothing.

We continue to hear nothing from the city until rent control becomes an issue. Then the city springs into action, filling up buses with protesters, commissioning studies to support their claims.

Once again, for a while we hear nothing from the city. Then Bill 103 is introduced in the Legislature and once again the city springs into action to oppose the change and keep the status quo, no matter how faulty it may be.

It seems to me as though the only time the city cares to tell residents about what they are doing is when it's to oppose something another level of government is doing. The city of Toronto is the defender of the status quo, and the status quo is not working for the city of Toronto.

The young people of today are looking for an equitable workplace, a workplace where jobs go to the most deserving. However, the Metro government has a practice of only hiring unionized construction companies to do work for them. That's not equitable and I hope that will change under a unified Toronto.

The environment in Toronto is not one where business can thrive. I am fully confident, however, that under a unified Toronto, a Toronto that can compete internationally and a Toronto with one voice, we can attract that business. That alone is reason enough for a unified Toronto. However, that's not the only reason.

Under a unified Toronto we can save, according to the KPMG report, $865 million in the first three years and $300 million annually from there on. The mayors say the study is flawed and that it was completed in only three weeks. The report they submitted in response, however, took only a day to prepare: another example of local hypocrisy. However, even supposing that you choose not to believe the KPMG report, there is also the Metro study which suggests savings figures very similar to those found in the KPMG report.

The opponents of a unified Toronto have told me that having seven administrations do the job of one will not save money. Common sense tells me it will. Amalgamating services does not strike me as a new idea. Our amalgamated police forces rank as the best in North America. Providing regional service works, and in fact many of the services that people value most, like the police, ambulance and public transit, are already amalgamated, and unlike the city of Toronto, they're working for us.

As I said earlier, I live in Toronto, but my school borders East York, where I eat lunch many days. Sometimes in the evening I'll go out for dinner to North York. I don't realize I'm crossing city boundaries when I do this. I ask all of you, why do we need three separate boards of health to examine those restaurants? Furthermore, when I take out the garbage in the morning, sometimes I see the garbage truck drive by my house, but it doesn't stop there; it stops three doors over in North York. How is that efficient?

Wendell Cox, the American consultant the city hired when they could have created a Canadian job, has said that amalgamation has not worked in many US cities, and he may be right. However, I think it's time we started looking to Canada for Canadian solutions. The Halifax example has also been bantered around a lot, but it's not a good comparison. In Halifax you have a large geographic area without a solid downtown core. In Toronto you have a smaller geographic area and a very definite downtown core. As well, much of the land in the Halifax amalgamation was unserviced. In Toronto all the land being amalgamated is already serviced.

A board of trustees to oversee expenditures is a positive step towards fiscal responsibility, and fiscal responsibility is what people of my generation need from government. By eliminating approximately 60 elected politicians, you're leaving 60 politicians who are accountable to no one from the time the bill is passed into law until the November election. Those people need to be accountable to someone. To leave politicians in control of our tax dollars while not being accountable would be extremely irresponsible. Having an independent body to oversee those people serves that purpose well.

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Most people I talk to don't know who their local city councillor is or who their local Metro councillor is. Why? Because nobody knows what they do. No one knows who to talk to when they have a problem with one level of government and inevitably they're given the runaround. Anyone who's ever tried to book a park for a picnic, as I have, can attest to that. I think it would probably be easier to book a concert on the front lawn of Queen's Park; at least then you'd know who to talk to.

By clearly defining the role of government, municipal politicians are now more accountable to residents, something that has been missing for far too long. Many claim that politicians will no longer be accessible under a unified Toronto. I disagree. I think that, if anything, they'll be more accessible. Metro averages 78,000 residents per ward. A unified Toronto will see that number reduced by about 25,000 residents -- over a third. Also, by setting up community offices so that residents don't need to go downtown to speak with their councillor or resolve a problem, they become more accessible.

It may be that you have a concern you want brought before council but it doesn't warrant a full trip to a councillor's office. Under a unified Toronto, residents will be more informed of what's going on around them and will in turn be able to keep their representative more aware of their concerns through community and neighbourhood committees. If the unified Toronto debate has shown us anything, it's that people do care very much about their community. Through neighbourhood committees, those people could directly affect the changes taking place locally. This is the best way to ensure real local democracy.

Whenever change is proposed, there will be opponents. People who are benefiting from the status quo will never like the idea of change. It's only natural to assume that the six mayors will not like the prospect of potentially losing their jobs. The same goes for the elected councillors; it's scary to lose a job in today's economy. However, those politicians should be fully confident they have created an environment where the private sector can grow and, as such, they shouldn't have too much trouble finding new jobs, and if they haven't, well then, it's time for real change.

Mr Sergio: Thank you very much for coming down and making a presentation to our committee. You have touched on the democratic process and referendums. You know the government approved the Orillia Rama casino. It approved the Niagara casino in record time. They have approved the so-called one-arm bandits, some 30,000 of them. You're aware of that.

Mr Forestell: Yes.

Mr Sergio: Now they are setting up 40 permanent casinos throughout the province or Metro. Before the election Mr Harris said, "I am going to have a referendum on that." Do you believe Bill 103 is less important or more important than casinos and we should have a binding referendum?

Mr Forestell: I certainly think the studies have shown that casinos are very detrimental to society in some ways and I think it's more an issue of principle than Metro governance. I hope that when they pass them out, they take a lot more care to ensure they're secret. I know that with the ballot they're doing in my school, personally I've already got three ballots and I have to sign my name to every one of them, which really isn't too democratic.

Mr Sergio: Are you saying we should have a referendum on the casinos? I'm sorry, I didn't get you.

Mr Forestell: I don't think that's for me to decide actually. If they care to have a referendum on casinos, that's fine, but I hope the referendum process is a lot more democratic than the one that's taking place now.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr Forestell, for coming forward and making your presentation this evening.

EDNA HUDSON

The Chair: Would Edna Hudson please come forward. Good evening. Welcome to the committee.

Ms Edna Hudson: Good evening. My name is Edna Hudson. I have lived in Ontario nearly all my adult life with my family. I'm an industrial engineer with strong interests in history and the architecture of Toronto. I belong to the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario.

Cost analyses, property taxes, new uses for old city halls are perhaps the preferred subject of discourse with some of you, but I feel it's more important to me, as a citizen, to assess the political validity of the proposals in Bill 103 without proceeding to other details at this time. I hope you will bear with me.

To control any engineering system, you must first measure what you have; that is, you must describe the steady state and then after an intervention the steady state usually returns because it's stronger than the disturbance. If that's not the case, there may be wild oscillations before a new steady state is established. I'll consider Bill 103 in these terms.

My assumptions about an initial steady state for the political culture of our province lead me to the following: (1) Things work. It's not much bother. We are not often worked up. (2) Change will be gradual. (3) We regard each other with equal respect. (4) We define ourselves as individuals.

There has always been constant interchange with our very powerful neighbours to the south, and at times we have been nearly overwhelmed, but our political structures derive from the Mother of Parliaments and from before Confederation Canadians have been developing our own social and cultural characteristics and we do have a distinctive history.

Comparing Bill 103 and its intentions to the steady state:

(1) Bill 103 assumes municipal government does not work. Why else were the municipal governments put under trusteeship? Why?

(2) Change is to be as sudden and as fast as the Tories can make it. They introduced legislation the week before Christmas. A fault line is introduced into our political life, something not before seen in this province.

(3) The office holders in municipal government and the electorate are not treated with respect by the words and actions of the bill. The same goes for some of the other legislation proposed.

I believe the provincial government should have conducted a referendum on the question of municipal powers before introducing legislation that pre-empts those powers. The current attempts to devalue the need for a referendum and discredit the results show a lack of respect and cynicism for necessary political developments. Why does the provincial government allow the voters' list to get more than three years out of date? Why?

(4) The invitation to concentrate on costs alone attacks the worth of our accomplishments as a city, our sense of history and our sense of ourselves, and it's also a foolish piece of advice.

Why are the interests of this provincial government at odds in so many ways with those of the citizens? Why? Who stands to gain? Investors in hotels perhaps.

The main business at city hall, in my experience, is planning, building applications and permissions, as most of you well know. To do planning in the best interests of all the citizens, you have to have good local knowledge of many different kinds. To do planning in the interests of the developers much less knowledge is required.

Area-wide formula solutions do not work in the interests of citizens. Cities are dynamic places where the problems are always changing into new problems, where answers are often best generated from the midst of the problem. Small is better in city administration.

The restructuring proposed is an unwarranted disturbance to normal development of city administration. It was not asked for by the citizens, was not part of the Tory election platform, nor is it supported by credible expert opinion. It is a massive intervention in our political culture.

The next question is: Will the initial steady state return after the shock of the intervention has passed? I think not. The new political structures may work, and who knows what changes might be required afterwards? The real difference will be that the citizens will know they have not been treated with respect. They will therefore not regard the new order with respect.

There are situations in life where trust, once betrayed, cannot be reconstructed, and it is a woman who tells you this. Should you enforce this bill you will lose whatever potential you have for the good regard of the electorate.

I predict a new steady state manifested as follows: (1) lethargic interest by the public in politics, a pervasive cynicism about the process, this being the result of your continuing contempt for and abuse of the electorate; (2) loss of quality of life; (3) loss of population in the city centre; (4) corruption of politicians becoming more commonplace as their power is not modified by the interests of the citizens; (5) loss of productive capacity of the city.

The Trimmer report, the Golden report and the mayors from the municipalities have all advised us with unmistakable sincerity that the proposals in Bill 103 will not work. The consequences of this bill will be far-reaching and will involve us all, some advantageously, many not.

If the voices of all those involved are discounted, who then is qualified to speak? Are you uninvolved?

I have to speak for myself at this point. I've done a certain amount of reading, attended some of these hearings, talked to my friends, and my common sense, life experience and love for my adopted home come into play too. I hope your opinions and actions are the outcome of a similar process. I ask you to reject Bill 103 and start again.

Mr Len Wood: Thank you for your presentation. The last line says it all: Bill 103 should be rejected and start over again, that it's flawed and it doesn't seem to do what Mike Harris and his group of people want to do with it.

I'm just concerned. You're saying that smaller is better, that there's more democracy with smaller. I heard in estimates last week, when I was travelling around the province, that Bill 103 is only a step in a process to probably eliminate 150,000 good paying jobs, whether they be unionized or non-unionized, and have them replaced with contractors or other people out there doing these services, that this is the intention of Bill 103, Bill 104 and all the other bills that are out there.

It's a matter of an attack on the ordinary working people, which worries my parents. My children are worried. Everybody is worried about the overall effect when we have a province with 10% unemployed and then we're going to see another 100,000 or 150,000 people replaced by this legislation. I just want you to comment on that.

Ms Hudson: Certainly the government makes no secret of its intention to cut government jobs, but it's the function of government that I worry about. The function of government will be changed. It will be turned away from care for the citizens' problems to care for investors who want their redevelopment projects for the city, and the political climate will encourage as much redevelopment as it possibly can.

The Chair: Thank you, Ms Hudson, for coming forward and making your presentation this evening.

This committee is in recess until Wednesday at 9 am.

The committee adjourned at 2114.