Proposal For The Province of Toronto - History

History

The Province of Toronto was first proposed as the name of the province of Ontario during the debates leading to Canadian Confederation in 1867. British imperial officials considered the name after noting that Quebec City was the capital of Quebec, and hence Toronto should be the capital of a similarly named province. The idea had little traction and was dismissed in favour of using the same name for the province as the lake adjacent to its capital city, Lake Ontario.

The provincehood movement idea has been supported by the urban activist Jane Jacobs and urban planner Joe Berridge. Jacobs viewed Toronto as a region, which was split into multiple jurisdictions as an artefact of historical politics.

In the 1970s, Paul Godfrey presented to the Royal Commission on Metropolitan Toronto, as chairman of Metropolitan Toronto, arguments that the region should have the capability to set policy as does a provincial government.

Back in the 1970s, Paul Godfrey, when he was Metro chair, argued before the Royal Commission on Metropolitan Toronto that the region should have the range and flexibility of a province in its decision making.

— Vanessa Lu, Should Toronto go it alone?, Toronto Star

In 1991 academic and future member of parliament Ted McWhinney argued before a parliamentary committee that if Quebec were to separate Ontario would need to be broken up to rebalance confederation. According to McWhinney, splitting off Toronto would be the most sensible option, pointing to Germany where Hamburg and Berlin have their own states as an example.

Mel Lastman proposed Toronto provincehood in 1999 while attending the Mayors Summit of the Americas in Miami, Florida; he later retracted his comments, but by then, they had already spurred discussion of the idea in the media. Lastman was panned in an editorial by The Hamilton Spectator for not having considered all the consequences of provincehood. Debate flourished, as various proposals were presented, including one for the creation of the Province of Southern Ontario and another for the creation of a city-state status in Canada, which could also include Vancouver and Montreal. The Committee for the Province of Toronto was formed to seek a constitutional amendment enabling the formation of a new province. On 9 February 1999, councillor Michael Walker presented a notice of motion to Toronto City Council on behalf of the committee. Lastman also considered issuing a plebiscite to the residents of Toronto about Toronto provincehood.

"I'm in favour of it considering it and thinking about it", the mayor said, adding the secession question could be put to Torontonians as early as the municipal election in November, 2000.

— Robert Benzie, Lastman mulls referendum on city secession, National Post

These debates faded, but did result in negotiation between the municipal government of Toronto and the provincial government about greater autonomy for Toronto, which eventually resulted in new legislation "The Stronger City of Toronto for a Stronger Ontario Act", as well as the City of Toronto Act which granted the city more policy-setting powers; it has used these, for example, to define new taxes, and to ban corporate and union donations for municipal election campaigns. It also indirectly influenced federal policy, as the New Deal for Cities in 2003 was one of the platforms for Paul Martin after he succeeded Jean Chrétien as Prime Minister of Canada.

Tooker Gomberg who placed second to Lastman in the 2000 mayoral election, also favoured the idea. In November 2000, just before the election, he stated that "the province of Toronto idea, though it's a long shot and a long- term solution, is something I favour. It's a compelling idea whose time has not quite come."

At a meeting of the Bruce County Federation of Agriculture in 2010, a Member of Provincial Parliament from central Ontario, Bill Murdoch, suggested that the city of Toronto become its own province, but the other parts of the GTA (also known as the 905) would remain in Ontario, proposing its new capital to be London. David Miller, mayor of Toronto, responded by issuing a message via Twitter, stating "Province of Toronto... an idea whose time has come?", and his spokesman Stuart Green indicated that Miller would consider a public debate about the possible secession of Toronto from Ontario, and Murdoch stated that he received an email from Miller also indicating he was agreeable to a discussion about it. Murdoch had considered presenting a private member's bill to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario about this proposal. Thunder Bay mayor Lynn Peterson opposed Murdoch's proposal, stating that one of the perceived issues was inconsequential, specifically that policies defined in the Ontario legislature are not Toronto-centric. Michael Gravelle, the Minister of Northern Development and Mines, said "I look at it from the perspective of would this be good for Northern Ontario . . . and I don‘t think it would be.”