Province of Toronto - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Province of Toronto is an urban secession

Urban secession

Urban secession is a city's secession from its surrounding region, to form a new political unit. This new unit is usually a subdivision of the same country as its surroundings, but in some cases, full sovereignty may be attained, in which case the unit is usually called a city-state...

proposal to split the city of Toronto

Toronto

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

and some or all of the Greater Toronto Area

Greater Toronto Area

The Greater Toronto Area is the largest metropolitan area in Canada, with a 2006 census population of 5.5 million. The Greater Toronto Area is usually defined as the central city of Toronto, along with four regional municipalities surrounding it: Durham, Halton, Peel, and York...

(GTA) from the province of Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

into a new Canadian province

Provinces and territories of Canada

The provinces and territories of Canada combine to make up the world's second-largest country by area. There are ten provinces and three territories...

. Secession of Toronto, the surrounding region, or any other portion of the province from Ontario to create a new province would require an amendment to the Constitution of Canada

Amendments to the Constitution of Canada

Amendments to the Constitution of Canada are changes to the Constitution of Canada initiated by the government. Only since 1982 has there been an official protocol to amend the Constitution.- History :...

.

The proposal for a new province of Toronto has been made by politicians and urban affairs commentators, most recently in 2010 by MPP Bill Murdoch

Bill Murdoch

Bill Murdoch is a politician in Ontario, Canada. He has been a member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario since 1990, and represents the riding of Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound as a Progressive Conservative....

. The concept has also been supported by Jane Jacobs

Jane Jacobs

Jane Jacobs, was an American-Canadian writer and activist with primary interest in communities and urban planning and decay. She is best known for The Death and Life of Great American Cities , a powerful critique of the urban renewal policies of the 1950s in the United States...

and others.

Variations of the proposal have appeared intermittently for decades.

Causes

Arguments posited for Toronto or GTA provincehood include those stating that the area's residents are politically and economically exploited by the rest of the province. Another argument presented is the urban issues faced by Toronto not present in other cities or rural areas of Ontario, including the delivery of public services to large numbers of immigrants and visible minorities, gun control, and differences in the delivery of education and health care to its residents. A federal political issue is the Greater Toronto Area's under-representation in the House of Commons.
Murdoch's proposal was motivated by a contrary sentiment, that the rural areas of Ontario have little clout in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario

Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The Legislative Assembly of Ontario , is the legislature of the Canadian province of Ontario, and is the second largest provincial legislature of Canada...

compared to Toronto. Andrew Steele, in an editorial in The Globe and Mail

The Globe and Mail

The Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of approximately 1 million, it is Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star...

, stated that Murdoch was instead speaking to the rural base of voters in his constituency and calling for the separation of rural Ontario from Toronto. Another argument sometimes presented to support a split of Toronto from the province is that politicians from other cities in the province are concerned about their influence on provincial politics.
Glen Murray has stated that Canadian cities must rely on property tax

Property tax

A property tax is an ad valorem levy on the value of property that the owner is required to pay. The tax is levied by the governing authority of the jurisdiction in which the property is located; it may be paid to a national government, a federated state or a municipality...

es, as they have no ability to enact other taxes or collect income

Income tax

An income tax is a tax levied on the income of individuals or businesses . Various income tax systems exist, with varying degrees of tax incidence. Income taxation can be progressive, proportional, or regressive. When the tax is levied on the income of companies, it is often called a corporate...

or consumption tax

Consumption tax

A consumption tax is a tax on spending on goods and services. The tax base of such a tax is the money spent on consumption. Consumption taxes are usually indirect, such as a sales tax or a value added tax...

es.

History

The Province of Toronto was first proposed as the name of the province of Ontario during the debates leading to Canadian Confederation

Canadian Confederation

Canadian Confederation was the process by which the federal Dominion of Canada was formed on July 1, 1867. On that day, three British colonies were formed into four Canadian provinces...

in 1867. British imperial officials considered the name after noting that Quebec City

Quebec City

Quebec , also Québec, Quebec City or Québec City is the capital of the Canadian province of Quebec and is located within the Capitale-Nationale region. It is the second most populous city in Quebec after Montreal, which is about to the southwest...

was the capital of Quebec

Quebec

Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

, 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

Lake Ontario

Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded on the north and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south by the American state of New York. Ontario, Canada's most populous province, was named for the lake. In the Wyandot language, ontarío means...

.

The provincehood movement

Proposals for new Canadian provinces and territories

Since Canadian Confederation in 1867, there have been several proposals for new Canadian provinces and territories. The Constitution of Canada requires an amendment for the creation of a new province but the creation of a new territory requires only an act of Parliament; therefore, it is easier...

idea has been supported by the urban activist Jane Jacobs

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

Metropolitan Toronto

The Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto was a senior level of municipal government in the Toronto, Ontario, Canada area from 1954 to 1998. It was created out of York County and was a precursor to the later concept of a regional municipality, being formed of smaller municipalities but having more...

, arguments that the region should have the capability to set policy as does a provincial government.
In 1991 academic and future member of parliament Ted McWhinney

Ted McWhinney

Edward Watson "Ted" McWhinney, QC is a Canadian lawyer and academic specializing in constitutional and international law. He was a Liberal Party Member of Parliament from 1993 to 2000 for the electoral district of Vancouver Quadra....

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

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

and Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

have their own states

States of Germany

Germany is made up of sixteen which are partly sovereign constituent states of the Federal Republic of Germany. Land literally translates as "country", and constitutionally speaking, they are constituent countries...

as an example.

Mel Lastman

Mel Lastman

Melvin Douglas "Mel" Lastman , nicknamed "Mayor Mel", is a former businessman and politician. He is the founder of the Bad Boy Furniture chain. He served as the mayor of the former city of North York, Ontario, Canada from 1972 until 1997. At the end of 1997, North York, along with five other...

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

The Hamilton Spectator

The Hamilton Spectator, founded in 1846, is a newspaper published every day but Sunday in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The paper has a daily circulation of 105,000 and a daily readership of nearly 260,000.-History:...

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

Vancouver

Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

and Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

. 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

Michael Walker (politician)

Michael Walker was the City Councillor in Toronto, Canada, for Ward 22 from 1982 to 2010. Ward 22 is bounded on the north by Eglinton Avenue and Broadway Avenue, on the east by Bayview Avenue, on the west by Spadina Avenue, and on the south by Moore Avenue and along the North Toronto Rail...

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.
These debates faded, but did result in negotiation between the municipal government of Toronto and the provincial government

Government of Ontario

The Government of Ontario refers to the provincial government of the province of Ontario, Canada. Its powers and structure are set out in the Constitution Act, 1867....

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

Paul Martin

Paul Edgar Philippe Martin, PC , also known as Paul Martin, Jr. is a Canadian politician who was the 21st Prime Minister of Canada, as well as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada....

after he succeeded Jean Chrétien

Jean Chrétien

Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien , known commonly as Jean Chrétien is a former Canadian politician who was the 20th Prime Minister of Canada. He served in the position for over ten years, from November 4, 1993 to December 12, 2003....

as Prime Minister of Canada

Prime Minister of Canada

The Prime Minister of Canada is the primary minister of the Crown, chairman of the Cabinet, and thus head of government for Canada, charged with advising the Canadian monarch or viceroy on the exercise of the executive powers vested in them by the constitution...

.

Tooker Gomberg

Tooker Gomberg

Tooker Gomberg was a Canadian politician and environmental activist.A native of Montreal, Quebec and a liberal-arts graduate of Hampshire College , Gomberg founded one of Canada's first curbside recycling programs in Montreal, and later moved to Edmonton, Alberta, where he created educational...

who placed second to Lastman in the 2000 mayoral election

Toronto municipal election, 2000

The Toronto municipal election of 2000, dubbed "Toronto Vote 2000" was the municipal and school board election held in the City of Toronto, Ontario, Canada on November 13, 2000.Elections were held to elect:* the Mayor of Toronto,* councillors for each of Toronto's 44 wards,* trustees...

, 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

Member of Provincial Parliament

A Member of Provincial Parliament is an elected member of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Ontario, Canada.The titular designation "Member of Provincial Parliament" and the initialism "MPP" were formally adopted by the Legislature on April 7, 1938...

from central Ontario, Bill Murdoch

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

London, Ontario

London is a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada, situated along the Quebec City – Windsor Corridor. The city has a population of 352,395, and the metropolitan area has a population of 457,720, according to the 2006 Canadian census; the metro population in 2009 was estimated at 489,274. The city...

. David Miller

David Miller (Canadian politician)

David Raymond Miller is a Canadian politician. He was the 63rd Mayor of Toronto and the second since the 1998 amalgamation. He was elected to the position in 2003 for a three-year term and re-elected in 2006 for a four-year term...

, mayor of Toronto, responded by issuing a message via Twitter

Twitter

Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...

, 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

Thunder Bay

-In Canada:Thunder Bay is the name of three places in the province of Ontario, Canada along Lake Superior:*Thunder Bay District, Ontario, a district in Northwestern Ontario*Thunder Bay, a city in Thunder Bay District*Thunder Bay, Unorganized, Ontario...

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

Michael Gravelle

Michael Gravelle is a politician in Ontario, Canada. He is the Minister of Northern Development, Mines and Forestry, and also a member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, representing the northern riding of Thunder Bay—Superior North for the Ontario Liberal Party.Gravelle was born in Port...

, the Minister of Northern Development and Mines

Ministry of Northern Development and Mines (Ontario)

The Ministry of Northern Development, Mines and Forestry is responsible for assisting economic development in the Northern Ontario region, and for mining and forestry regulation, in the Canadian province of Ontario....

, said "I look at it from the perspective of would this be good for Northern Ontario . . . and I don‘t think it would be.”

Constitutional amendment

For any part of Toronto and the surrounding region to secede from Ontario to create a new province would require an amendment to the Constitution of Canada. The constitutional amendment would require resolutions from the House of Commons of Canada and the Senate of Canada, and resolutions from the legislative bodies of two-thirds of the provinces representing at least 50% of the population.

However, it has also been suggested that such an amendment may not be necessary if the federal and provincial government agree to split the province.

By the numbers

With 2.5 million residents, the city of Toronto is more populous than six provinces — Manitoba

Manitoba

Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...

, New Brunswick

New Brunswick

New Brunswick is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the only province in the federation that is constitutionally bilingual . The provincial capital is Fredericton and Saint John is the most populous city. Greater Moncton is the largest Census Metropolitan Area...

, Newfoundland and Labrador

Newfoundland and Labrador

Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada. Situated in the country's Atlantic region, it incorporates the island of Newfoundland and mainland Labrador with a combined area of . As of April 2011, the province's estimated population is 508,400...

, Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...

, Prince Edward Island

Prince Edward Island

Prince Edward Island is a Canadian province consisting of an island of the same name, as well as other islands. The maritime province is the smallest in the nation in both land area and population...

, and Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of . Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota....

.

The Province of Toronto would become the second smallest in Canada by area, larger only than Prince Edward Island, whose area is 5,660 km², but would become the third most populous province in Canada only after Quebec

Quebec

and the resized Ontario.

Name	Total area (km²)	Rank	Population est 2006	Rank
Existing Province of Ontario Ontario Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....	1,076,395	2 of 10	12,160,282	1 of 10
Existing City of Toronto Toronto Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...	630	n/a	2,503,281	n/a
Regional Municipality of Durham	2,523.15	n/a	561,258	n/a
Regional Municipality of Halton	967.17	n/a	439,526	n/a
Regional Municipality of Peel	1,241.99	n/a	1,159,405	n/a
Regional Municipality of York	1,761.84	n/a	892,712	n/a
Resized Province of Ontario	1,070,684	2 of 11	6,604,370	2 of 11
Combined Province of Toronto	5,711	10 of 11	5,555,912	3 of 11

Political party

Registration for the Province of Toronto Party was accepted by Elections Ontario

Elections Ontario

Elections Ontario is a non-partisan Agency of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. They work under the Chief Electoral Officer, an officer of the Legislative Assembly. responsible for the conduct of provincial elections.-External links:*...

on 18 June 2001, and became effective on 1 July that year. One of its founding members was David Vallance. Members of the party contested for the mayorship of Toronto in the 2003

Toronto municipal election, 2003

The Toronto municipal election of 2003 was held on November 10, 2003, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, to elect the Mayor of Toronto, 44 city councillors, and school board trustees.David Miller was elected mayor ....

and 2006

Toronto municipal election, 2006

The 2006 Toronto municipal election took place on 13 November 2006 to elect a mayor and 44 city councillors in Toronto, Ontario. In addition, school trustees were elected to the Toronto District School Board, Toronto Catholic District School Board, Conseil scolaire de district du Centre-Sud-Ouest...

municipal elections.

Paul Lewin's campaign in the 2003 mayoral election used the slogan "Free 416", referring to the regional use of the city's area code as a nickname, while advocating for a Province of Toronto. He fared poorly in the municipal election.

David Vallance was the 2006 candidate for the mayoral election in Toronto. He has written several Letters to the Editor

Letter to the editor

A letter to the editor is a letter sent to a publication about issues of concern from its readers. Usually, letters are intended for publication...

over the years on various matters, including the state of Toronto's provincial tax burden. He was a vocal opponent of the amalgamation of the old City of Toronto with neighbouring municipalities in 1997, and led the group Taxpayers Against Megacity. He had previously campaigned for city council

Toronto City Council

The Toronto City Council is the governing body of the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.Members represent wards throughout the city, and are known as councillors....

in the 1997 municipal election

Toronto municipal election, 1997

The 1997 Toronto municipal election was the first election held for offices in the amalgamated "megacity" of Toronto, Canada. The elections were administered by the old City of Toronto and its five suburbs within Metropolitan Toronto...

as an extension of his anti-megacity campaign, and also advocated for property tax reforms. In 2006, he argued that Torontonians should "take control of our own taxes and control our own destiny".

External links