Toronto Marks 20 Years of Amalgamation...And 20 Years of Decline

I was prompted to write this blog when I saw a Facebook post by Mayor John Tory commemorating 20 years since the different parts of Toronto were amalgamated into one "megacity" as it was then called. I honestly think that this is a grim anniversary, because ever since the amalgamation, which many if not most Torontonians rejected, Toronto has been in steady decline.

Before amalgamation, the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto was composed of several separate municipalities: North York, East York, Scarborough, Etobicoke, and of course, the old City of Toronto. Enter Ontario Premier Mike Harris. He decided to put all of them together, whether Torontonians liked it or not. Harris was hardly a friend to Toronto. In fact, I would say he had a big hate-on for this city. It's no surprise, then, that he downloaded a whole bunch of costs onto the city without downloading additional funds. He also removed the provincial subsidy for the TTC, which is now one of the least subsidized transit systems in North America.

In 2003, the Liberals deposed the Tories as Ontario's governing party, but they didn't undo the damage that Premier Harris and his government did to the city. Quite the contrary, they did even more damage by giving the stiffs at City Hall more power to raise taxes and fees. Ever since then, the city's spendthrift mayors and councillors have been pigging out at the trough. Year after year, Torontonians see the fees and taxes they paid go up and the level and quality of city services go down as their elected officials recklessly spend taxpayer dollars on their own pet projects.

To make matters worse, amalgamation sewed the seeds of division between the old City of Toronto and its suburbs. To this day, folks in the suburbs complain about how they are shortchanged by "downtown elites", especially when it comes to public transit. Indeed, the further out from the downtown core you go, the worse public transit gets. Toronto's transit system remains stuck in the 1980's. At the same time, the city's population has grown tremendously. As a result, Toronto's buses, streetcars and subways are severely overcrowded and much of the city is under-served by the TTC.

I would say that Toronto is still a great city. But after twenty years of amalgamation, its people are divided, its transit system is woefully inadequate, home prices have skyrocketed and traffic is simply a nightmare.