The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Is Doug Ford Trying to Be the Mayor of Toronto?

Episode Date: November 26, 2024

There was a time in Ontario when the provincial government focused on the really big issues: clean air and water, inter-city rail service, provincial parks, good education policy, effective hospital care. Not anymore. Doug Ford's government is different. Exhibit A: deciding where the capital city can and cannot put bike lanes. What's going on here? Why is it starting to feel like Toronto vs. Ontario? Former Toronto mayor and longtime community activist John Sewell; Amanda Galbraith, Co-Founder & Partner of the Oyster Group; and Laura Stone from the Globe and Mail join Steve Paikin to discuss. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Exciting isn't it? Visit tvo.org slash Giving Tuesday to make your donation today. And discover your 2-Point TVO. There was a time in Ontario when the provincial government focused on the really big issues. Clean air and water, intercity rail service, provincial parks, good education policy, effective hospital care. Not anymore. Doug Ford's government is different. Exhibit A, deciding where the capital city can and cannot put

bike lanes. What's going on here? Why is it starting to feel like Toronto versus Ontario? Let's ask former Toronto Mayor and longtime community activist John Sewell. Crisis Communications consultant Amanda Galbraith, co-founder and partner of the Oyster Group, and in Burlington, Ontario Globe and Mail politics reporter Laura Stone. And it's great to have you two here in our studio. Laura, thanks for joining us on the line from beautiful Burlington and Holton region. Let me just do, I put together this little fact file here that will just sort of get us to where we want to get to on this whole Toronto versus Ontario thing.

Let's go back to July, 2023 2023 when Doug Ford said that if Olivia Chao became the mayor of Toronto, it would be an unmitigated disaster. And then a few days later, after she won, he said, she's actually a very nice person. And then in November 2023, Ontario uploaded responsibility for the Gardiner Expressway and the Don Valley Parkway to the province,

saving the capital city $1.9 billion over 10 years. So the relationship is looking pretty good. Then in October of 2024, Bill 212 prohibits bike lanes from being built if a lane of traffic is removed as a result, it would also allow the province to remove existing bike lanes. And this has begat a whole firestorm of controversy. John Sewell, the relationship between the city and the province has clearly become more

problematic. What's going on? Well, I mean, we've had this problem for a long, long time. You know, I just think Mike Harris, you know, he did a whole bunch of things to the city that never should have happened. You know, he amalgamated the city against the wishes of 76% of the people who voted in the referendum. He downloaded a whole bunch of stuff.

So it's the same stuff. And I mean, that's not all. Bill Davis even, and you know, we all honor Bill Davis, but Bill Davis signed a thing called the Edmonton Agreement, I think in 1975, which said that the province would never reduce funds to cities unless the cities agreed to it. And then sure enough later, a year or two later, he reduced those funds. So we're constantly in a fight. And the reason is that under the Constitution, Canada is a creature of the provincial government.

And so they can do what they want. And they do. And the city for a long time has been saying, we need powers that can't be interfered with by the provincial government. More on that to come. All right, Amanda, what do you see? I see that it is politically advantageous, candidly, for the province and the city to be fighting at different times.

When Mayor Chao was first elected, it was politically advantageous for the premier her to get along, right? She got, I think, a huge win out of the upload. And now the two highways. Yeah. And now that Premier Ford is looking into a potential election, now the rumors

are that may actually not happen. I think they've seen the polling numbers and they see that it's politically beneficial to pick this fight. Now, why is it politically beneficial to pick this fight? Because the people of the city are frustrated by gridlock. Just yesterday I believe the team in town to play, the NHL hockey team in town to play the Leafs

had to get out of their bus and walk through downtown Toronto. Isn't that something? It's insane in a major city that we cannot function properly. This was the Utah hockey team, right? Yeah, well, we've never heard of it, by the way. I don't follow hockey. They're brand new, it's okay.

There's a Utah hockey team, but they documented it all. Like, that is, it's funny, but it's actually just, it's criminal that we can't actually move people enough around in this city. So I think they're topping into a frustration. I think it is real, and I think the idea that currently the city's governed

by some time people downtown who think everybody, I live in Etobicoke now, that everybody rides bikes and doesn't have to drive cars. I used to ride my bike all the time. I have to drive a car now. And they see peripheral functional bike lanes at the expense of their own ability to get around when we haven't kept up with building transit.

So I think it's a fight that they want to have. Laura, you've been following the relationship between City Hall and the provincial legislature for some time now. They were getting along so well, and now they're not. How come? Look, I think it's surprising that they have been getting along so well.

I think, you know, as we led into the segment, Steve, you kind of replayed Doug Ford's words from the past saying how much of a disaster Olivia Chow would be. He said this during the campaign and he backed one of her main rivals, the former Toronto police chief. So kind of heading into it, everyone thought, well, Doug Ford and Olivia Chow are going to hate each other. They're never going to work. And then they sort of teamed up on this new deal for Toronto. They both criticized the federal government for shelter spaces for refugees and they were getting along. Look, I don't really see this as a personal fight between Doug Ford and Olivia Chow. I see this as Doug Ford being very heavily invested in the City of Toronto, obviously as we've seen from

from pretty much day one when he slashed Toronto City Council in half and various other moves that he's made, he really cares about the City of Toronto and he drives to to Queen's Park, he sees the bike lanes in his area on Bloor Street, I think he's got quite frankly a bee in his bonnet on this particular issue and he also sees the polling on it and and you know according to to the progressive conservative polling arm he viewed this as a popular measure even from within the city. So I think you know Amanda's right in that this is a political moment for him there could be an election he wants to kind of take on the issues that he views as popular and he is a populist politician but I think it's also deeply personal for him as an issues that he views as popular and he is a populist politician, but

I think it's also deeply personal for him as an issue that he sees with his own eyes every day. Well, let me pick up on that with John Sewell. He represents a riding in the 416. We actually have had very few premiers in Ontario history who represent a riding in Toronto. Right. So is there anything wrong with him taking as a Toronto MPP a particular interest

in Toronto issues? He can take an interest in it, but for him to override city council on something it has clear legitimate to do seems to me to be wrong. You know, we have legislation that sort of outlines what the city can do and what it can't do and he's willing to override that all the time. I mean, he's doing it with the supervised consumption sites as well. He's overriding legislation that clearly allows the city to do that and it seems to me that government should try and stick out of the other people's turf.

Now you go back a little bit so I'm going to ask you to sort of look in the recesses of your memory here. Bob Ray was a Premier who represented a Toronto riding. So was Kathleen Wynne. Did they get involved in the granular aspects of everyday life in the way that Doug Ford is? No. You're sure about that?

I'm sure. I'm pretty sure about that. And the same is true of Bill Davis. I gave that example about the Edmonton commitment, but that was a province wide thing that wasn't just about the City of Toronto. Amanda, what about this notion that he's the Premier? He should be looking out for provincial issues that have a province-wide thing. That wasn't just about the City of Toronto. Amanda, what about this notion that he's the Premier? He should be looking out for provincial issues that have relevance province-wide and he shouldn't be sticking his nose in where bike lanes do or aren't supposed to go.

I mean, I understand people making that argument, but to your point, he is a Toronto MPP. People forget, but the Conservatives have, like the Provincial, Progressive Conservatives have a huge amount of seats in, like they have Toronto seats, like not an insubstantive amount. So issues... This is, we should say as well, for elections from I think 2003 until 2000 and maybe 18, I don't think the Conservatives won a single seat in Toronto. No, that's true. Except one by-election, but not a general election seat in the whole city. Exactly.

So the fact that he's got a lot here now says something. And it says that people like his idea of how the city should be run. So we can argue, yes, should the Premier be arguing about where bike lanes sit on certain roads? Like, maybe he's got other things to do. But obviously he wants to represent, I think, the City of Toronto. They want to keep those seats, just like we saw with the 413, that argument, you know, we don't need more highways.

It's wildly popular. They want all the seats there. It's wildly popular in the city for a reason. And to my mind, do I believe that, do I like the idea of the province meddling to this level in the city? No, I do not. But do I think this happens when politicians see levels of government not being responsive enough to the needs of the citizens and ignoring them? I do and I think you're gonna see the premier take

an opportunity that's where he's politically savvy. John Sewell's shaking his head. Well I mean you know part of the problem is that the data doesn't support the idea that bike lanes are the problem with congestion. I mean you know I, given the fact I have trouble with my knees I've got a drive and taxis are my own car You know construction is the big problem everywhere It's not bike lanes. I figured out bike lanes is four percent of them My wife recently had to go out sure way gardens And so she went on Google to find the best route to go the best route to go according to Google Along Bloor Street the whole Driving. Driving in a car.

That's a long way. That's right. Bike lanes are not the problem. I agree that he seems to think that politically they're important, but in fact, they're probably from people who in fact don't have any experience with how they actually work and so forth. Well, let me get willing to blame the bike lanes and something that they shouldn't be blaming them on

Let me get Laura to follow up on that because you in your first answer Laura You said that there was polling that suggested that the premier's getting involved in what? Hmm. I think most people think is a pretty local issue as opposed to a provincial issue was polling very well What's that a reference to? From what I understand kind of speaking with progressive conservative pollsters, those who work on the issue, it's quantified as kind of a two to one, that two people support the idea of everyone that doesn't. So they view it as a popular exercise.

Amanda mentioned the idea of gridlock. We could talk about whether the premier should be getting involved in the nitty gritty of what the city should be doing. But I think the issue of congestion, of traffic, of gridlock, of getting around the city, that is probably the number one issue for most voters. And transit as well. And the provincial government has put a substantial amount of money into that, as has the federal government. So I think I think it's kind of you know I think

there is there are smaller kind of details that the premier is involved in but they're part of a bigger piece of the puzzle I think that that the Ford government has been preoccupied with for quite some time now. Well let me see if I can spitball this here we'll get you two to comment on it. If you've got the so-called downtown or inner city types mad at you, but you've made a decision like bike lanes where you get the inner suburbs, the 905 and the exurbs on your side, that's pretty smart politics, isn't it, John Sewell? It's smart politics, but it's not good politics. I mean, it's good for getting election. But you know, what we want good politicians to do is to represent larger issues and try

and address those larger issues and not get caught up in the small stuff. And this is being caught up in the small stuff. Smart versus good politics. What do you see? I think it's, I think candidly it's both because candidly it's not about bike lanes. It's about how people get around the city. It's about the fact that I have to take from Etobicoke, which should be a 20 minute drive downtown. It takes me over an hour each way. It is wild that like even when I lived in Leslieville trying to get downtown in the city again,

it went from 20 minutes to 45 and that was using transit. So I will say getting around this city, getting around this region is a huge crisis. It went from 20 minutes to 45 and that was using transit. So I will say getting around this city, getting around this region is a huge crisis. I think the Premier has every right and should be directly involved and that means saying, get those bike lanes out of there so people can get home faster. Like that's what he should be doing. I have no issue with that. But the thing is you're going to get rid of the bike lanes and let's see the construction on that and what that does to drivers for in that period and it's not going to get

you home any faster. I mean that's the point. Getting rid of the bike lanes isn't going to solve a congestion problem. Simply not going to do it. Laura, this is, well we like to think this is one of those programs where empirically provable facts actually matter and where we care about them. And you know I think we've all seen the studies that say the effort to rip out the bike lanes is A, going to be expensive and B, going to cause even more traffic jams.

And there was I think a Toronto City Councillor named Mike Cole, former member of the legislature, who said we should put up signs all over the city saying, if you're stuck in traffic, blame the Premier. It's his ripping out the bike lanes that is causing this problem. Having said that, talk to us if you would about the politics of this. If you've set up a coalition where inner city people are on their own and inner suburbs, 905 and exurbs are on your side, how does that look if you're a progressive conservative?

I think it is sort of a new culture war that we're seeing, right? This war on bike lanes, it's headline grabbing, it's very divisive, and people are talking about it. And I think, you know, it would be a bit of a fallacy to think that even those living in downtown Toronto support the bike lanes. I think there's lots of people who even live in the city who don't want them, but there is obviously a very vocal group of people who use bike lanes who want them support them and who don't want the premier and a provincial government to Spend time ripping them out, you know What kind of the split on that is how many people support how many don't I don't know that we have You know the the key facts of exactly what that looks

like. But I think this too is kind of a Doug Ford nod to conservative voters, to progressive conservative voters. I think he's done a lot since returning from the lengthy break of the summer to tip his hat to some of the more conservative members of the electorate who maybe have become a bit more fed up with his government, who viewed him as maybe being too centrist or too leading to the left. And I know some people will watch this and laugh that anyone perceives him like that. But I think there actually were a lot of disaffected conservatives post-COVID at Doug Ford. I think a lot of people are looking at what he's doing now, like, you know,

let's tunnel under the 401, let's get rid of bike lanes. He's throwing some red meat, I think, more at conservatives who maybe were a bit disenchanted with him over the past couple of years. I mean, I thought it was interesting that one of the amendments he brought in to the legislation getting rid of bike lanes is the one that says his government can't be sued by anybody who was injured or killed because a bike lane has been taken out. What does that tell you? Well it tells me he doesn't care about people riding bikes. In fact the point is bike lanes make things much safer for bike riders and also I think for car drivers because they're separated out and and he just

you know he just throwing them well literally throwing them under the bus I think that is a bit too much to say the premier's throwing people under the bus people have died and I like honestly I don't think it also the premier doesn't care about people ride bikes governments indemnify themselves all the time in legislation they did so around the green belt it's not new it's not unusual it's actually smart policy well I think it is unusual it's not unusual, it's actually smart policy. Well, I think it is unusual. It's very rare for politicians to pass legislation saying, you can't ever sue us because we passed this legislation.

Doug Ford, I think, is the first Premier that I'm aware of in Ontario who's ever done that. I want Amanda to have a chance to react to something that the Leader of the Opposition said the other day, I think it was just last week, about why the Premier seems to be getting involved in issues of such a granular nature. Let's put it that way. Sheldon, the clip if you would. There's two things going on here. One is Doug Ford is fighting the

battles that he lost when he was a city councillor here in the City of Toronto. Right? Can't get over that. And the second thing is he is trying to distract from his schemes and his scandals and the damage that his government is doing to the province of Ontario. And so I absolutely think that's what this game was all about. Politics of distraction, what do you think? I don't think so because I actually, I mean, one,

you could argue that it is an effective distraction But I actually think the fights they're picking are the fights they want to have like to Laura's point Like if the City of Toronto set up signs in front of every place He ripped out a bike lane and said this is because Doug Ford is ripping out bike lanes I'm pretty sure the Premier's office would throw a party like would be so happy for that like I remember when we were On Mayor Tory's campaign back then and we were talking about SmartTrack which now is not smart track, and people kept arguing with us about how it could not be built.

And every time they argued it could not be built, we were thrilled because people were talking about how we were trying to build something. So Merit Styles, I think, certainly has an avenue. This is distracting from maybe meteor issues that she would like to talk about, like perhaps health care, or that people don't have family doctors, certainly. But to say that this isn't something

that I think people are seized with or frustrated with in the city, how they get around, how people get around in the greater region, I think that is, to Laura's point earlier, I think that's the number one issue that people care about. Well, okay, this is where, again, we try to deal with empirically provable facts here. And here's Brian Rosborough, who is executive, excuse me,

executive director of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, AMO, who says, our concern is about the province substituting its authority for municipal authority because we don't have a lot of examples of where that has been successful. John Sewell, in your experience, who knows best for Toronto, the city or the province? Toronto does. The people who get elected in Toronto, they're the ones who have the best and if they're wrong about it they won't get elected next time I mean it's real simple this is what elections are about so you know I think we should say let's I mean you got to

remember that Olivia Chow has only been in office for a year it's not as though she was elected way, way, way back when and people have lost sight of what she stands for. So, you know, it's pretty straightforward. You know, Toronto politicians are the ones who should be making decisions about Toronto. And of course, as my argument is, they should have a lot more power to do a lot more things so that we can do things. I mean, you know, we're getting the Ontario line. Well, it's not where Toronto wanted to build it. We had our own, well, no, the province gets to decide that. You know, there's interference all over the place

and it's a big problem. Well, to that end about the capital city having more of its own say, let's, Laura, I'll bring you in on this because back in 2007, Dalton McGinty was the Premier of Ontario. He passed something called the City of Toronto Act, which gave the city more powers to do its own thing. Previous city councils have availed themselves of that act to do some

things that they otherwise couldn't do. But the city, at least certainly a lot of people I talk to, want the power to do more. They want Toronto to have a lot more of its own authority over its own affairs. What might that look like? What do you hear? I mean, I think there's kind of a constitutional question here, right? I think, you know, it's been characterized or outlined that the cities are the products, I suppose, of the provinces. I think, you know, it is a bit of a battle that's happening at the different government levels. I think Doug Ford really does kind of look back, maybe, I don't know if it's using the term fondly is correct, but he does talk a lot about the past, about his time as a councillor and about his time

when Rob Ford was mayor. And so I think he is, to Mark Stiles' point, kind of fighting that past fight that he maybe wasn't successfully able to win. I think, you know, if you're a city councillor, of course you would want more say over your own affairs. You would want to be able to fight back against the province that is trying to remove lanes that you as a councillor put in because you thought that was the best use for the neighbourhood. So whether the council kind of avails itself of that, I'm not as familiar with kind of the ins and outs of what a city council can and can't do, but I think there is kind of the greater battle between what the province has the right to do and what we've seen Doug Ford avail himself of versus you know what the city is willing to push

back on. Amanda do you think the city should have more powers to do what it wants to do? Yeah I do think they should have more powers and you should have more taxation powers I think they should have more authority for sure. At the end of the day they are creatures of the province as we know and the province can come in and drop the hammer as Kathleen W sure. At the end of the day, they are creatures of the province, as we know, and the province can come in and drop the hammer, as Kathleen Wynne did when the City of Toronto passed road tolls on the Gardiner and DVP, and then she came in and said, nope, that's not electorate beneficial for me,

I'll double the gas tax funding, right? So, but yeah, I think the services that cities provide today are far outsized and have creeped in scope to the degree to which we can't fund them on a property tax base and you also see this huge growth in development charges which is hampering our ability to build housing. So yeah, I think the system itself is broken, but I also think more senior levels of government exist to provide a check on lower levels of government.

And people are inherently frustrated with the decay they're seeing in the city with encampments, with traffic congestion. And if that is not being solved at the municipal level, and right now it is not, then yes, they elect people from the City of Toronto, but they also elect MPs and MPPs. So those other elected officials can step in and have been done to fix it. John Sewell, you have talked in the past about creating Toronto as a charter city. What does that mean and what would it do? Well, a charter city would mean that it has powers that the provincial government

couldn't interfere with. And the way to get it is really, really simple. Under the constitution, there's a thing called the single province amendment. And if the provincial government went to the federal government and said, we'd like to give more powers to cities and here are the powers you'd like to give them including as you say taxation powers. The federal government can approve that by a simple vote of the House of Commons and the Senate and we get more powers. The single province amendment has been used a number of times in Canada. It was used by Newfoundland and Labrador to get rid of separate schools.

It's been used by Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick to build that bridge across the strait there. It's been used by the Quebec government a number of times. So it'd be easy for the provincial government to do that. And giving the city more powers would really help. If we got more money, we wouldn't have to go to the feds and the province for funds for housing or transit. We could actually say, hey, that's our responsibility, we're going to do it.

I might say that if you go to Scandinavia, they have a different system. Like in Canada, we have the feds, the province, and municipal governments. Over there in Scandinavia, they have the feds, the province, and municipal governments. Over there in Scandinavia, they have the feds, the state, and municipal governments. They aren't on top of one another. They each have their own powers. Very few shared cost programs. It works a lot better because it means you actually have responsibilities. You don't deliver.

People say, we'll get a government that does. One quick follow up though. Most governments I have encountered over the years don't like people say we'll get a government that does one quick follow-up though most governments I have encountered over the years don't like to give up authority You got it and you you're asking a provincial government to give up authority that it currently has over municipalities So why would they do that? Well, that's the problem. I mean here it is. Toronto is the biggest city in Canada Why would the province want to give up any powers over that? And that's the problem. And we need some politicians who are going to stand up for larger issues and say come on now we're going to give up powers because it's going to improve government. And it means that the Ontario government can

concentrate on other areas which it should be doing. You know if you look at the politics of this Amanda, in respects, that scenario that John Sewell just laid out makes some sense because if things are going badly in the city, people would blame the city. Right now, people tend to blame the province for everything. They'd have some political cover if they allowed Toronto to have additional powers. Or am I just smoking something here?

I don't know what you smoked, Steve. But I do think, listen, I actually think people are blaming the feds interestingly a bit more than they're blaming the province right now, just I think people are frustrated and aiming their guns there. But if you want to actually look at facts here, the premiers, this government did give, they gave strong mayor powers to major cities like which progressive governments did not. That's actually as someone who worked in City Hall to get something, you have to go to council, get everyone to vote, do a report,

they report back, then you debate it again, and then, like, it's a very convoluted process. Strong mayor powers are hugely transformative as far as what the mayor can and cannot do. And that is, that's a huge stick to wield. And of course, progressives are like, oh no, we can never possibly use it. And then the mayors get elected,

and then of course, guess what? They're using strong mayor powers. Some of them do. Some of them do. Not all of them, but I guarantee, I bet you you in 10 years from now they're all using the strong mayor powers, right? So I think that has happened. Do I think any provincial government who's got any political sense no matter what side of the political spectrum they're on are going to give more autonomy to the City of Toronto to tax and do what they want? Probably not.

I'm down to my last 30 seconds here because time flies when you're having fun. And Laura, I heard Amanda say earlier that the hot rumor is that there is not going to be a spring election next year. Did I hear you say that right? I heard there's rumors that people are not, not everyone is convinced. Okay. Laura, you got any sort of up-to-date intelligence on the status of that? I don't.

I, you know, the way things are going and sort of how we're seeing the province pre-position themselves, all signs point to me that there would be an early election, you know, particularly to kind of preempt what happens on the federal scene. I had heard potentially that maybe the Liberals think they will make it to next fall and maybe that gives the province a little more wiggle room, but I would think that the calculations for Doug Ford to call an early election are still there to kind of throw his opponents off, particularly Bonnie Cromby, who is the Liberal leader and lesser known in the province, and to

hold off on a federal conservative win, because that is going to be maybe a bit more difficult for Doug Ford to get reelected if Garfalev wins an election just before he is taking voters to the polls in Ontario. John Sewell smiling because in municipal life, they actually do have fixed election dates and they mean something. So there you go. Can I thank everybody for joining us on the program today? Amanda Galbraith, John Sewell, Laura Stone. Great to have you all in or around TVO anyway. Thanks so much.