To understand Ontario politics you need to know three basic facts:
Firstly, the rest of the province either dislikes or loathes Toronto, and gets actively angry at the idea that "their tax dollars" would ever be spent on the city.
Firstly, the rest of the province either dislikes or loathes Toronto, and gets actively angry at the idea that "their tax dollars" would ever be spent on the city.
Secondly, most regions in Ontario get far more provincial funding/spending than they contribute in taxes. Only a few big cities contribute more than they spend; Toronto unsurprisingly is the biggest contributor, getting back about half of what the province collects from it.
Thirdly, Toronto is majority nonwhite and the rest of Ontario is majority white.
The result of this is that there is a serious cultural divide between the rest of the province and the city that quite literally subsidizes most of their lifestyles, and they are mostly incapable of admitting their dependence on Toronto.
(This also happens at the federal level as well, incidentally, although the effect is less dramatic because of other large cities like Montreal, Vancouver, etc.)
When Conservative governments come into power, they exploit this by introducing "savings" measures which disproportionately affect Toronto. Mike Harris' "downloading" of social governance responsibilities to municipalities is an excellent example.
Smaller municipalities don't have big social services budgets or transit budgets. Who does? Whoops, Toronto does, because that sort of spending is mostly urban in nature.
This is why every Toronto mayor complains that the city doesn't get funding from the province and the feds.
This is why every Toronto mayor complains that the city doesn't get funding from the province and the feds.
But there's no easy political solution, because the province is essentially designed, at this point, to transfer funds from Toronto to everywhere else.
And: okay, fine, we live in a society, we take care of each other, that's how it's supposed to work, in theory.
And: okay, fine, we live in a society, we take care of each other, that's how it's supposed to work, in theory.
The problem is that the province at this point is filled with people who are essentially getting upset when Toronto says "look, can we give you a little less money this year so we can fix some stuff up?"
And I don't know how that's sustainable.
And I don't know how that's sustainable.
