LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO
Monday 13 February 2006

STRONGER CITY OF TORONTO FOR A STRONGER ONTARIO ACT, 2006 /
LOI DE 2006 CRÉANT UN TORONTO PLUS FORT POUR UN ONTARIO PLUS FORT

ORDERS OF THE DAY
STRONGER CITY OF TORONTO FOR A STRONGER ONTARIO ACT, 2006 /
LOI DE 2006 CRÉANT UN TORONTO PLUS FORT POUR UN ONTARIO PLUS FORT

Mr. Gerretsen moved second reading of the following bill:
Bill 53, An Act to revise the City of Toronto Acts, 1997 (Nos. 1 and 2), to amend certain public Acts in relation to municipal powers and to repeal certain private Acts relating to the City of Toronto / Projet de loi 53, Loi révisant les lois de 1997 Nos 1 et 2 sur la cité de Toronto, modifiant certaines lois d'intérêt public en ce qui concerne les pouvoirs municipaux et abrogeant certaines lois d'intérêt privé se rapportant à la cité de Toronto.
The Deputy Speaker: Further debate?

Mr. Ernie Hardeman (Oxford): Thank you for allowing me to put a few comments on record here on Bill 53.

Just before I start, contrary to what the parliamentary assistant just told this House, I wish this bill did deal with some of the issues as they relate to who delivers what services. In fact, that's what is basically necessary in order to deal with the problems that we have in Toronto and in all other municipalities in Ontario as to whether the tax base on property is sufficient to pay for the services that municipalities are today being asked to deliver. I'll talk a little bit more about that as we move along, but I think that's a very important thing to remember. There are two things that come into play here. One is the services that are being delivered, and whether the revenue to cover those services is sufficient to deliver them. This government is not willing to talk about the services that are being delivered. They're coming forward with this bill to make it sound like they have a plan to solve the problems, but when we get down to it, I don't believe that's the case.

Let me start by saying what the goals of this act were supposed to be, according to the minister. They were to give the city broad permissive powers commensurate with its size, responsibility and significance to the province; second, to recognize that in order for the city to provide good government, the city must be appropriately empowered; and third was to foster a strong consultative relationship with the city that respects and advances the interests of both governments.

I don't believe this bill accomplishes that, and as we go through this, we have a lot of areas where people of great knowledge in this area have differences of opinion.
Let me start by stating that AMO asked that the changes to the Municipal Act be tabled at the same time as the city of Toronto act. The government has been saying they've been working on this for a long time, both the Municipal Act and the city of Toronto act, and they were going to introduce them at the same time. The rest of Ontario was waiting for them to come at the same time, but of course that didn't happen. It isn't a surprise, because all municipalities were looking for the same revenue-raising abilities and waiting with interest to see how this would play out. Obviously, the city of London, the city of Windsor and the city of Ottawa have similar problems -- they may be a different size, but similar problems -- when it comes to the finances of their municipalities as does the city of Toronto.

The problem is the same and it's universal. I thought the changes to the Municipal Act should have been tabled prior to the city of Toronto act so we could see whether the concern that we had shown for the city of Toronto was going to be the same for all municipalities.
But after the fact, after I reviewed the city of Toronto act, I realized that it really doesn't make any difference, because there are very few changes in this bill other than more taxing powers for the city of Toronto. In some areas that are not really the most significant areas in local government, there are changes that give more authority to the city of Toronto, but we will get to those.

In those areas where more authority is given, if you read further in the act you'll find that the provincial government giveth and the provincial government creates the ability to take away, because in each case, they have, by regulation, that they can change, if they don't like what's happening. That's why I think they have now proposed this city of Toronto act to see how that works, and then hopefully they will be making changes to the Municipal Act, 2001.
It would have been simple, and I think that's so important here -- it takes a lot of time to go through the process, but I think it would have been much simpler had the government just taken the Municipal Act, done a review of the Municipal Act as they promised, and then included the things that are in the city of Toronto act. They could have applied that to Toronto and to other cities that have need of the same thing.

So let's get to the purpose of the city of Toronto act, 2006. Its intent is to balance the interests of the city and the province, while giving the city "broad permissive powers." A quote from Minister John Gerretsen on December 14, 2005, in Hansard: "The city would have more power to control its own destiny with the passage and enactment of this bill.... Our government believes that the city of Toronto is a mature government that can ably represent its needs for the benefit of city residents. It is time to move forward and give the city the tools it needs to compete on a global scale." I don't disagree with him, except I see absolutely nothing in this bill that significantly changes their ability to help create their own destiny.

But this does not amount to what the city really needs. The city has reported that they have over a $500-million deficit leading into this year. The taxes bill is purported to give them -- all estimates are around $50 million. That means there's going to continue to be at least a $450-million deficit in the city of Toronto.

We keep hearing from the government that the city has matured; the city has now grown up, and they need the authority to be able to govern themselves, create their own destiny and look after the needs of their own people. It's like when the children grow up in a family, and it's time to say, "You're at the age where you are now ready to start out on your own and become responsible for your own livelihood and create your future for yourself," as your children go out to university. But with this, they just decided to say, "And all the responsibilities you have" -- that the parents were paying for, that was coming from the province -- "will no longer be looked after. In fact, you're on your own; go get it." And incidentally, "We will allow you to increase taxes in certain parts."

Now, if my opinion is wrong on that -- I would just read a quote. Last year and for a number of years, the city of Toronto has been having this problem of being short of money at budget time. Last year, when the budget was being prepared, the Globe and Mail reported on

February 5:
"Toronto should consider increasing residential property taxes above the already-assumed rise of 3% as a way to close its yawning budget shortfall, Ontario's municipal affairs minister urged yesterday.

"`There are municipalities in the GTA whose tax hikes for residential properties are much higher than the self-imposed 3% that the mayor ... put on it,' ... Gerretsen said in a telephone interview from Kingston. `I don't think it is the province's role to ensure that a local municipal official meets'" their targets and their obligations.

So in other words, last year he cut the traces and said, "City of Toronto, you're on your own. Quit complaining. Just raise your taxes to cover your bills." Of course, that isn't what the city of Toronto wants to do. The city of Toronto needs help in finding out how we can control and arrange our costs and make sure that we are covering the costs that property tax should cover, and then to make their budget meet -- because the city, at that point, realized that the taxpayers could not stand the great increase that the minister was talking about.
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On December 14, our leader, John Tory, said in Hansard, "Toronto is very much in need of a new relationship, a new series of solutions. I said so many times when I was running for mayor of the city; I said so as one of the founders of the Toronto City Summit Alliance. A lot of good work has been done by many people in many places, and I want to thank all of those involved in the process. But I am concerned that the victory party has begun before that new relationship has really been achieved."

This was when this act was introduced in this Legislature and, in fact, the Liberal government was saying that this was the answer to Toronto's problems, but our leader suggested that this wasn't necessarily going to solve the problems, so we shouldn't have the party yet that all had been achieved. Now, as we read the bill, obviously that's exactly what has happened.

On January 31, our leader said: "It really is quite simple: Increase clarity, accountability and planning, and do more with existing dollars before asking for -- or taking -- more." This is contrary to Liberal philosophy. Their answer is, more taxes, more spending will always solve the problem. We think that's wrong. We think that we have to look at who can do what and how it can be done most effectively and efficiently to make sure that everyone is paying for their proper services and he who makes the rules is the one that delivers the service.

Of course, through all this Toronto Mayor David Miller has been pushing for a share of provincial income tax revenues. I guess it's quite clear that's the overall big umbrella of revenue coming into the province. Mayor Miller believes that some of that money should come to help pay for social services in the city of Toronto, so he wanted part of that.

If the legislation is passed, the province will give the city the power to levy its own taxes on -- and this is interesting -- on entertainment, tobacco and alcohol. I guess that's where the $50-million estimate comes from as to how much we can generate, but in fact that will not generate the type of dollars that are required.

There are also some problems with raising taxes on those three -- what we should call -- vices. Entertainment, I suppose, is rather a simple tax, not to administer necessarily, but to impose. In fact, you charge a tax on everything in the city that is entertainment. In some cases, I suppose that will work very well. I expect you can put a levy on a ticket going into the dome or the Air Canada Centre, but some of the entertainment venues would go to areas where that tax would not be included, so that would not necessarily help the city of Toronto.
I would suggest that if it's going to be taxed on the venues that are already there, it might be more appropriate just to create an assessment class and actually charge it as a property tax and the city then doesn't need to charge, especially on the tickets, but could do it right through their property tax structure.

Again, tobacco and alcohol are always favourites of government on which to put taxes. But if you put taxes on tobacco and alcohol just in the city of Toronto, I don't think that's going to necessarily increase the city's revenues, because you will see the purchase of those products just on the other side of the line; I think the dividing line on the north end of the city is Steeles Avenue. Likely the areas where you can purchase those products on the other side of the line will start doing a whole lot better, and the city of Toronto would not likely improve much.

It's so important, with all these taxes, to make sure that if they are only for the city of Toronto -- and the government has not said they wouldn't put it in the Municipal Act -- I think a lot of the traffic will be going out to spend their dollars and consume services and it will not be a great benefit to Toronto.

The other thing that I think is so important is that we need to start looking at what they're spending and how it's being spent, to make sure that we are getting value for money in all the services that the city is providing and that the province is giving money for, and vice versa, to make sure that they're providing the right services and that the answer isn't the Liberal answer, which is always to just tax and spend. I think an example of that was a quote in the Sunday Sun on February 12. This was a quote from Sue-Ann Levy, who was talking about the issue of the fare on the TTC. They were talking of course about the budget shortfall and whether the province was going to come up with more money or whether the federal government was going to come up with more money. The item goes on: "Without giving it a moment's thought, Chairman Howard Moscoe and the four socialist comrades who sit on the TTC with him rammed through fare increases right across the board. Not one member of the commuting public will be spared -- adults, children, students and seniors will all take a minimum 50-cent hit come April 1." Of course, this is this year. "Fact is, no matter how much money comes pouring in from the senior levels of government, it seems there will never be enough to satisfy the TTC."

I think it's important to recognize that that's the problem we have to look at: how best we can provide it, and recognize that there is not an endless amount of money that can pay for the services. I'm not suggesting that the TTC doesn't need more money; I'm just suggesting that we have to make sure that in everything we're doing we're getting value for money.

As our leader said at the Canadian Club on January 31, "Before we rush to implement new powers to tax for city governments -- whether in Toronto or elsewhere -- why don't we carry out a proper, expeditious examination of federal-provincial-municipal finance first to see how much of our current problem can be solved by using existing taxpayer dollars." It's so important that we look at how we're spending the money at all three levels of government, to make sure the right government is doing the service and that they have the money to provide it.

"The new city of Toronto legislation is welcome in many respects, but we should delay the proclamation of the new taxing powers until after we have both completed an examination of the federal-provincial-municipal imbalance as well as asking the city to conduct a full value-for-money audit of the city government -- as I was committed to doing had I been elected mayor in 2003." That's the end of the quote by our leader.

The basic premise is that we should be looking at this -- it seems to be a bill to increase the ability to tax when I think it should be a bill to help them work out or to come up with a balance of their ability to provide the money for the services they're being asked to provide.
Just quickly to point out, one of the things we've been hearing a lot of concerns about is the cost of social services in the city of Toronto. We hear a lot of that from outside of Toronto, because of the process they call pooling, where the outlying 905 area has to help pay for the average cost of social services across the greater Toronto area, because the social services tend to be more focused in the centre of the big city. Of course, if the social services were looked at as a greater provincial responsibility, then the pooling would no longer be required and it would help not only the budget in the greater Toronto area but also the budget in the 905 area.

One of the other areas, aside from the taxing, is the authority to license. I think this is a major concern that we have in the licensing part of the bill. It's not new that municipalities have the ability to license. Obviously, they've been licensing certain types of businesses and certain occupations for some time, but there's some real concern with the ability as to licensing today in the bill. I think it's important that we look at the "Powers re licences," section 86 of the bill: "Without limiting sections 7 and 8, those sections authorize the city to provide for a system of licences with respect to a business...." Then it goes on to list the types of businesses. I think it's rather important to put it on the record the types of businesses that licensing could and would apply to: "to prohibit the carrying on or engaging in the business without a licence...." They can stop people from running any business without having a licence.

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Actually, that was in the section of the powers they have on the licence. But in section 85, "`business' means any business wholly or partly carried on within the city even if the business is being carried on from a location outside the city and includes,
"(a) trades and occupations...."
So anybody living in Oxford county and coming into Toronto to work, if that's a business, could be asked to be licensed by the city.
"(b) exhibitions, concerts, festivals and other organized public amusements held for profit or otherwise,
"(c) the sale or hire of goods or services on an intermittent or one-time basis and the activities of a transient trader".
They already have the ability to license certain types of transient trades, but this makes it broad, so that anyone who comes into the city can be licensed.

The next one is a rather interesting one:
"(d) the display of samples, patterns or specimens of goods for the purpose of sale or hire."
So anyone coming in and advertising their business in the city would have to have a licence to do that. I don't know how they're going to regulate someone coming downtown with a truck and having it advertised on the side of their truck that they have a business and work for sale. A house renovator wants to come into town and his trucks advertise his business: I suppose that's a display of "patterns or specimens of goods for the purpose of sale or hire," particularly if he had some windows in the back of his truck that were for sale. I suppose he could be asked to be licensed.

The problem with that, of course, is that the licensing could be very expensive. There is no real limit in the bill on how much they can charge to license any specific business. They could in fact charge whatever they want. If someone doesn't buy the licence, of course, then they have the ability to prohibit them from carrying on the business, or I suppose prohibit them from coming into town. They can also revoke the licence without a reason, and they have 28 days then to come up with a reason.

They can "impose special conditions on a business in a class that have not been imposed on all of the businesses in that class in order to obtain" or continue to have a licence. It really concerns me that they could actually license differently for individuals in the same trade. You could say, "Well, we have enough home renovators in the city, so anybody else applying for a licence -- from now on we're going to treat the next applicant differently than we've treated everyone else," and that would be legal in there. I think the licensing part and how they can enforce that is a real problem.

There are a couple of other authorities they're getting in this bill that are supposed to make the city work so much better, and because they've matured, they can have these responsibilities. I say that somewhat with tongue in cheek, because I believe that the authority to extend bar hours, which presently are, I think, 2 o'clock in the morning -- I'm not up that late very often to see whether it's 2 or 1. The truth is, I don't think anyone would suggest that the city doesn't or shouldn't have the ability to regulate those hours. But I also think it makes absolutely no sense that you could regulate bar hours differently in Toronto than you could in Mississauga or Vaughan or anywhere else around the city, or anywhere else in the province for that matter. I think all municipal governments are in the position to license and to set bar hours.

It's the same with the authority to regulate holiday store openings. Again, the Municipal Act already gives authority to designate certain areas of municipalities to have Sunday openings and holiday openings. This does make it uniform across the wholeprovince, so you don't need a tourist designation in an area in order to have this. But I don't see that this should be unique to the city of Toronto. That type of authority would definitely have no harm in being across the whole province.

What it doesn't include are things such as the Building Code Act, the Fire Protection and Prevention Act, the Planning Act, the Employment Standards Act and the Smoke-Free Ontario Act. It's not that they wouldn't govern it exactly the same way, but we have the ability to regulate bar hours but not what they can do in the bar. So again, I think smoke-free Ontario would cover all of us, but I don't know why they would not include that when in fact they don't believe that the uniform bar hours across the province should stay uniform, where the other one does.

The other thing, just very quickly -- I mentioned the licensing and the concerns of that. It's not only my concern as I read the bill but it's also the concern of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. They have raised this concern. I want to quote Judith Andrew, the vice-president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, in a letter that she wrote to me on November 7:

"We are extremely concerned with the lack of in-depth consultation with stakeholders prior to the drafting" of this legislation -- and again, this has primarily to do with the licensing provisions. "It is inconceivable that the province would proceed with a matter of this significance without the necessary analysis, study and consultation with stakeholders on specific policy proposals -- before legislation is drafted."

Again, I think it's important to recognize that there is a difference. She's not implying that the legislation has been passed and now the government is going to say, "We will consult on this and we'll have public hearings" -- and I'm sure they're going to say we're going to have a lot of public hearings on this bill, not just for the city of Toronto but for all of the province, because of the impact. What Judith is really saying here is that you should talk about these things before you draft the bill. There was a good example of that in Bill 206, which we've just gone through, the OMERS bill. The government members on the committee made the comment, "We're not going to apologize for all the changes we made, when we had hearings after first reading. We're not even going to apologize for all the changes that were made after second reading. We don't apologize for talking to the people." I had the opportunity to sit on committee and said I didn't expect an apology for listening; I expected an apology for not consulting before you wrote it in the first place. That's really the problem here.

This goes on with the quote from Judith Andrew:
"After months of playing coy, Premier Dalton McGuinty has finally admitted that the new city of Toronto cct will give the city new powers to raise revenues.

"As reported yesterday, the Premier is willing to give Toronto greater authority, even as he worries that the whole plan could go sideways if the mayor and council don't use their new powers wisely. It's a scenario the business community has feared since the plans for the new legislation were announced. Past experience with property taxes, city procurement and municipal regulation have shown small business owners that they can count on unfair treatment from the mayor and council."

Now, as the member for Oxford, I've also received many e-mails from members in my riding. I'll read one of them now. This is again going to the same problem. This is a member of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

"I am a resident of Woodstock and also a member of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.... The reason for this e-mail is to let you know that I oppose the introduction of this legislation without meaningful consultation and without full details being released to the public. I am also opposed to the idea of granting more revenue-raising and regulatory powers to municipalities. I would like to know your position on this matter and would like you to go back to your caucus and seek a postponement. I look forward to hearing from you."

Obviously, they also are not very pleased with this piece of legislation. I've got quite a number of those in my riding, and it's not because I live in the 416 or the 905. It's far from Toronto. I'm sure all the members opposite who represent more distant ridings and rural ridings will realize that the small business people in our communities are concerned about this legislation, not so much for what it does in Toronto but for what it will do as it spans out into the rest of the province. I think they're all assuming it's a given that if these types of authority are given to city of Toronto council, they will also go into the rest of the province.
Just a few months ago I was in this House, and we were debating Bill 37, the Respect for Municipalities Act, 2005. I stated then and I'll state again that the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing has introduced a "no respect for taxpayers act." This bill is a groundbreaking demonstration of how the McGuinty Liberal government is committed to tax and spend and now allows municipalities to do that.

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The Canadian Federation of Independent Business at this point agrees with that scenario. The answer to all the problems, both in the city of Toronto and in the province, in the view of the Liberal government, is to just increase taxes and spend.

Again, I think we want to make sure that they look at that, as they didn't do with the OMERS bill, look at what impact this will have not only on the city of Toronto and all of Ontario but on the taxpayers as opposed to just municipal governments.

We will all remember, as I just mentioned, the debate on Bill 37. We will remember that Bill 37 was the act that the government introduced after having the Premier, for all to see just prior to the last election, signing the Taxpayer Protection Act, agreeing not to raise taxes. Then of course, realizing when this bill was coming that he was going to allow the three areas of taxation which are also provincial areas of taxation, he realized that according to the pledge he had made to the taxpayers federation he couldn't bring this bill in, so they brought in Bill 37, which was in fact saying that if they transferred their taxing authority to another authority, which would be the local government, they wouldn't have to have a referendum. Of course at that point he said they could then increase taxes on behalf of the provincial government. I suggested that maybe they were just doing that so they could get by the fact that they said they wouldn't raise taxes; they would just have the municipalities do it for them. Obviously that's what has happened here.

Talking about the city and the money, in the Toronto Star, David Miller, the mayor of Toronto, said -- this was when the province gave him the money from the gasoline tax. I think what's interesting here is that the city needs the money, but it's not good enough to just say, "Well, here's the money, but then you're not getting the other." They need more money if they're going to deliver more services. "`It's very good news that Dalton McGuinty delivered on his gas tax promise,' said Miller.

"But, unfortunately, we're in this seemingly endless provincial and federal way of moving the cheques around and that does not support the needs of the people of Toronto."

The minister mentioned this, that this was when the city got $91 million from the gas tax. I can't understand this, but Mayor Miller said in the Toronto Star on October 27, 2004, which goes back a year, so this debate has been going on for some time, "We are worse off than we were before." After he got $91 million because of the sleight of hand or the changing of the way they were passing out the money and the services that they were asked to present, they were actually worse off.

Maybe it's by design, but maybe it's just incompetence or we don't understand what's happening, but this bill, to me, is a lot like the OMERS bill. There was some discussion about that in question period today, that there are some similarities.

The OMERS bill is the bill that changes -- at least we were told the intent of the bill was that the governance of OMERS would change from the provincial government to the municipal government and the employees of municipal government, so it would be run by the people involved with the plan as opposed to being run by the provincial government.

The bill was introduced and given first reading, and then it went to committee before it went for second reading, and then amendments were made. There were some 140 amendments -- just a little over 100 the first time -- introduced and some 60 of those were government amendments. This is between the time that they had written the bill -- before it ever got into the House for debate, they decided that it needed 62 amendments, not just word corrections but total changes in the bill.

It then came into the House for second reading. There was no debate during second reading. That was just before we recessed. It went back to committee, and during the recess we had another number of days of hearings on it, and the government introduced 40 more amendments. Now, some of those amendments were beyond the 60 and some were amending the previous amendments. But when the Legislative Assembly printed the bill and gave it back to committee, they printed it in two colours: that which was the original and that which was amended. The original is black and the amended is blue. If you look at the bill, about two thirds of it is blue. So obviously we didn't really look at the original drafting of the bill to make sure that it accomplished what they wanted to accomplish.

When it was introduced, the minister came to the committee and suggested that all was well and it wouldn't take long to have the public hearings because we were going to hear a lot of good reports on this bill, because this was really good stuff: Municipalities had been asking for years to have the plan devolved and everybody was going to like this approach. Of course, we started getting people coming in and we didn't have anyone, to be honest about it -- at the end of the public hearings after first reading, nobody supported it anymore. They did make some amendments to bring some of the groups back on side, but a very small number of them. The largest participant on the employee side in the plan is totally opposed to the bill; the management side of the plan is totally opposed to the bill. The government said, "We're listening, but we're going to pass it anyway because" -- I guess I don't have a good reason. They said it was because everybody was asking for it. Now we have no one left asking for it, but the government is going to proceed with it anyway. So I think that's rather a telling thing about, "We're doing the consultations, we're looking at these bills, but what really is being said and what we're hearing doesn't make that much difference."

The reason I bring up 206 is that I think it's very important that we don't end up with the same thing here, when we see the bill and what's in it. It doesn't really do what we all had hoped it would do, which was to give the city of Toronto the ability to deal with its own affairs. It's really just a bill that is a rewrite of the Municipal Act with a few added features that the government wants to impose on that.

The other connection between the OMERS bill and this bill that bothers me a little is the fact that one of the presenters on the OMERS bill came forward and said that no one seemed to be talking about it, but that if you looked at the OMERS plan today, there was an unfunded liability risk coming forward and the sponsor of the plan would be liable for that. In fact, the bill changes the sponsor of the plan so the liability would change, as to who would be responsible for that unfunded liability. That's a bit of a concern, but I guess the reason it relates back to this bill is I have some concern that what we're doing here is devolving some of the taxing powers and some of the licensing powers so we can stand back and say, "City of Toronto, it's your problem." There's nothing in this bill that's going to help the city of Toronto with the TTC. There's nothing in the bill that's going to help the city of Toronto meet their objectives in social services. I think those are the types of things the city is looking for that they're not getting.

The other thing -- and I mentioned it earlier -- is the issue of the authority that they are giving the province. Presently in the Municipal Act, municipalities can decide the makeup of their council; they can decide the makeup, if they have a ward system and how they create their governance -- it's already in the Municipal Act. That part of the new city of Toronto act is a similar approach. But the province has decided, and the Premier has spoken out about this a number of times, that they really want a different style of governance in the city of Toronto. They want what they call a strong mayor approach, where the mayor has more authority than just as a single vote within the context of the council. Now, I think they've left that direction with the policy-makers at the city of Toronto and in council. And if that works out, then, "We gave them that authority, and they did what they wanted to do."

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The province has also decided in this that if they don't like the decision of city council as it's structured and the new way they structure it, then by regulation, by order in council they can put in a new style of governance in the city of Toronto. I don't know how you can backstop a city decision like that and then say, "Oh, we're giving you autonomy. It's time that you had control of your own destiny."

There are absolutely no extra powers in the city of Toronto act given to the mayor to appoint certain people. I know the mayor has suggested that was a good idea, others have suggested it wasn't, but there are no special powers in the bill to deal with things other than as a straight member of council; he's only the chief executive officer. But they can, by regulation, as I said, overpower that and they can just send in a regulation to say this is the way it's going to be.

The city can also appoint boards and commissions, except they're told that there are certain boards and commissions they must have, which of course includes everything they've got today -- or I shouldn't say everything, they may have more than are there. The boards that already exist must be maintained by the city, and those include the TTC, the police services board, the board of health, the Exhibition Place board, the Toronto zoo board, the library board, the historical board and the licensing commission. Again, if we're going to be free and open and we're going to be able to direct our own destiny, I don't know how we can put such limitations on that by suggesting what they can't do.

It's the same with the delegation of powers. They can delegate powers, but then there is a list of powers that they can't delegate. Of course, it's not surprising they can't delegate budget authority and so forth, but one has to wonder why they can't delegate some of the other things.

One of the other areas is the area and responsibility of housing. The minister mentioned a time or two that the city of Toronto shouldn't have to come to the province to make housing decisions; that should be a city decision. One of the legal people who did some review for the housing people said -- let's hear a quote from the legal firm: "One area in which the province appears to have maintained its opportunity to hedge its bets, is in the area of retaining regulatory powers, whether full-scale regulations by the Lieutenant Governor in Council, or as increasingly appears to be the case, empowering the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing to make regulations through a less formal process not subject to the Regulations Act, dealing with technical matters, or circumscribing the powers of city council."

When a professional legal person looks into the act, it's something that I wouldn't have seen if I was reading it and I'm sure that the general public wouldn't have seen, but it concerns me when we say we're giving the city this local autonomy but somebody is watching. Big Brother is always watching; Big Brother can change that. I think we should be very cautious, that if we're going to put limits in place, let's be clear and open about it: "No, you don't have that authority. We want you to do it, but the province will be watching you."

One other area that Bill 53 deals with is the appointment of mandatory officers for accountability: the Integrity Commissioner, Ombudsman and the Auditor General. They've always had the ability to do that, but now they must do that in the act. I don't object to "must" do that. I don't know why the government would portray that as a plus -- "This is part of your local autonomy, you must appoint these people" -- where no one else in the municipal realm has to do that. So I'm not sure that the "must" is going to improve the --
Mr. Ted McMeekin (Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Aldershot): Didn't you just say we should define the limitations? Didn't you just say that?
Mr. Hardeman: What did I just say? I hope you were listening.
Mr. McMeekin: That the government should define the limitations --
The Deputy Speaker: Excuse me, gentlemen, but I feel a little left out of this, really. You should be speaking through the Chair and not directly to the member.
Mr. Hardeman: Mr. Speaker, I have been doing my best to speak through the Chair. It's the member who spoke directly to me.
The Deputy Speaker: In that case, I'm reminding both of you.
Mr. Hardeman: I appreciate that and I would agree with you.
I would just point out that putting in limitations is a good thing for anything that we do, but telling them what they have to do as opposed to what they may do is not the way I would call putting in appropriate limitations.

I would just point out here that there are a couple of other things that the act does. One is the ability to affect design in the Planning Act. There are a lot of things in the Planning Act that don't change. The Planning Act is one of the acts that stays in place for the city of Toronto, save and except there are some amendments that they will get more authority over than what the rest of the province would get. They can affect design of buildings and the exterior of buildings and so forth.

The Greater Toronto Home Builders' Association, in a letter they wrote to the Premier, said, "Design should not be decided by city government -- it should be left to the creativity of the many qualified architects and designers in the province. Giving the power to control `good design' to a city bureaucracy is totally wrong-headed." I think this is important. Maybe the Premier did listen to that as they developed this policy -- I don't see anything in there that he did -- but it would seem to me that that's the type of thing they should have heard before they drafted the first draft of the legislation, to make sure that was still what they wanted to do. I attended a seminar on that, and there was great concern about the city deciding on certain types of exterior finishes that would dramatically increase the cost of the building. Now, is that really what the people of Toronto -- not just city council -- wanted, the brick instead of the glass, because it pleases one or two people on the planning board, as opposed to serviceability for the people of Toronto? Those are the types of things that are of some concern.

The other thing I found rather interesting -- being from Oxford county I suppose it struck me -- is that under the environmental controls the city can also regulate green roofs. In my case, we have red roofs. We don't like to have black because they attract the sun too much, but we have all kinds of roofs. I didn't realize a green roof is allowing the building of a garden on the roof. One of the things that act says is that it has a sunset clause on it. If that's a good idea, why would that be limited? It would be time-sensitive. I guess that would be a question that we could ask.

The other area is some of the planning decisions, such as under land use planning. The authority to create appeal boards after the decision-making will assume that the city has delegated their authority to a consent authority or to a committee of adjustment, and then the city can appoint a body to hear appeals to those decisions. So we would have an appointed board and an appeals authority both appointed by the city. The problem of course is to establish the ability, the things that they would be able to decide, and how you make sure that we don't end up with the problem that we make the decision based solely on the objector as opposed to on the proponent.

Again, a quote from the Greater Toronto Home Builders' Association on July 26: "Municipal politicians have demonstrated time and again their susceptibility to the pressure of local residents when they make NIMBY (not in my backyard) arguments. The OMB provides an essential check on local political influences."

This refers to the fact that we shouldn't have the appeals body appointed by the city. This should be an Ontario Municipal Board decision.

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Going to the rental housing approach, I quote from WeirFoulds. It's a letter from the lawyer to the Federation of Rental-housing Providers of Ontario: "This new approach begs, of course, an analysis of the ways in which the city of Toronto really is different from other municipalities and communities throughout the province of Ontario, and whether it is appropriate that it be treated separately and differently, and given virtual legislative independence in so many areas, in ways not similarly applied to even the large municipalities in the province.

"It may, of course, be the case that the city of Toronto act is a form of trial balloon, and if the city shows that it can handle its new-found powers and jurisdiction, similar provisions will be extended to other municipal governments."

I said earlier that a lot of what is in the city of Toronto act can be found in the Municipal Act, and I will read the following quote. This is again from WeirFoulds: "Many of the provisions in the new act are simply re-enactments, in the proposed city of Toronto act, of provisions already existing in the Municipal Act, the Planning Act, Bill 51 and other legislation."

Again, I will quote John Tory: "It really is quite simple: increase clarity, accountability and planning and more with existing tax dollars before asking for ... more" and more.

I'll quote from the website of Tourism Toronto, because I believe that they sum it up well in describing Toronto as: "Every city has a story, and Toronto's is written by the people: in several languages, in poetry, in song, in sidewalk art, in restaurant menus, in architectural blueprints, in scientific discoveries -- even in legislation. Toronto is a city built with and for the limitless imaginations of the people who come here to live and those who come here to visit.
"Toronto isn't just diverse, it's the most diverse city in the world, and that leads Torontonians to look at things a little differently, from the perspective of a hundred cultures. Two transit tokens can take you from one country to another, passing along the way through the quaint neighbourhoods that make up our intimate metropolis. It's a place of energy exchange."

Let's make sure we get this legislation right the first time. All municipalities in Ontario are waiting because they expect, through the Municipal Act, to receive the same opportunities that the Toronto act legislates for this great city. Toronto deserves a good and supportive piece of legislation that will do what it needs done, not Bill 53 as it's presently written.
Thank you very much for allowing me to take a few minutes to put some of the points and the problems that I see with Bill 53 on the record.