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Metro Council redirects here. For the legislative body of Nashville, Tennessee, see Metropolitan Council (Davidson County). For a governmental body in Minnesota, see Metropolitan Council.

The Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto was the name of the highest level of municipal government in the Toronto, Ontario, Canada, area from 1954 to 1997. It resembled, in some ways, a regional municipality, being formed of smaller municipalities but having more responsibilities than a county or district. It was commonly referred to as "Metro" or "Metro Toronto" to avoid confusion with the existing City of Toronto, which was one of its members.

History and politics

Formation

In Ontario, the creation of municipalities falls under provincial jurisdiction. Thus it was a provincial act, the Metropolitan Toronto Act, that created this level of government in 1953. When it took effect in 1954, the portion of York County south of Steeles Avenue (an old concession line and township boundary) was severed from the county and incorporated as the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto. (The area north of Steeles remained in York County, which became York Region in 1971.)

As well as the City of Toronto proper, Metro Toronto took in the Towns of New Toronto, Mimico, Weston, and Leaside; the Villages of Long Branch, Swansea, and Forest Hill; and the Townships of Etobicoke, York, North York, East York, and Scarborough.

The Metropolitan Toronto Council initially consisted of 12 councillors from Toronto (including the mayor), and one representative (usually a mayor or reeve) from each of the surrounding municipalities. Metropolitan Toronto also had planning authority over the surrounding townships such as Vaughan, Markham, and Pickering, but these areas did not have representation on Metro Council.

Growth

Frederick Gardiner was the first Metro Chairman, and under his leadership, Metropolitan Toronto experienced a period of substantial growth, including the expansion of its early subway network and a number of highways, including the Gardiner Expressway, named in his honour.

As a result of this growth, the Province of Ontario reorganized Metro in 1967. The seven small towns and villages, which were no longer any denser than the surrounding areas, were eliminated. This left the City of Toronto and the five townships, which at this time were redesignated as boroughs. (All but East York later opted to be called cities instead.) Long Branch, New Toronto, and Mimico were absorbed into Etobicoke; Weston was absorbed into York; Leaside, into East York; and Swansea and Forest Hill, into Toronto.

As the seats on Metro Council were reapportioned according to population, the council was now dominated by the suburban majority; but it continued to address suburban and inner city issues in equal measure.

Political structure

Originally, members of the Metropolitan Toronto Council also sat on their respective lower-tier councils; they were not directly elected to the upper-tier council, and because Toronto councillors often voted in a bloc, inner-city issues tended to dominate. The arrangement was achieved by electing two members in each ward. The person who achieved the greatest number of votes was named the senior alderman. The person with the second most votes was the junior alderman. Both aldermen sat on the local council. Only the senior alderman sat on Metro Council. The Province of Ontario changed this arrangement in 1988, requiring direct elections to Metro Council and severing the links between the two tiers. Now only the mayors of the six member municipalities sat on both the upper-tier and lower-tier councils. Metropolitan Toronto became more difficult to manage, and the incentive for the lower-tier councillors to scapegoat Metro council (which they no longer sat on) increased tensions.

The first Chairman of Metropolitan Toronto, Frederick Gardiner, was appointed by the province; subsequent chairmen were elected by Metro Council itself. The Metro Chairman was, for many years, an ex-officio member of the Council without having to be elected to Metro Council by constituents as either a local mayor, controller, alderman or councillor. Beginning in 1988, the position of chairman was chosen by council members from amongst its own members.

As usual in Ontario municipalities, all of these councils were non-partisan, although in later years some councillors (and candidates) did identify themselves explicitly as New Democratic Party members. Metro councillors were elected by simple plurality.

From the inception of Metro Toronto until amalgamation, there were six chairmen altogether:

Amalgamation

During the 1990s many people came to feel that Metropolitan Toronto, set up to encompass the urban region of Toronto, was no longer relevant. On the one hand it served barely 50% of what was becoming known as the Greater Toronto Area; on the other, its residents often felt more concerned with local matters than Metro-wide ones. When a City of Toronto election ballot included a non-binding referendum question on eliminating the Metro level of government, there was a substantial vote in favour.

In the 1995 provincial election, Ontario Progressive Conservative Party leader Mike Harris campaigned on reducing the level of government in Ontario, and promised to examine Metropolitan Toronto with an eye to eliminating it. However, in the end the Harris government announced what they saw as a superior cost-saving plan: Metro Toronto would be amalgamated with its six member municipalities to form a new City of Toronto. In effect, the existing City of Toronto and the other five municipalities would be abolished and the larger Metro government retained.

The announcement touched off a firestorm of public objections to the "megacity" plan. In March 1997 a referendum in all six municipalities produced a vote of more than 3:1 against amalgamation; in April, both opposition parties held a filibuster in the provincial legislature. But the Harris government, with a solid majority, stood firm, denounced all opposition, and passed the City of Toronto Act. The amalgamation took place at year's end: on January 1, 1998, the new City of Toronto was born.

City Hall and Metro Hall

At its inception in 1953, Metro was headquartered at 67 Adelaide Street East. When the new Toronto City Hall opened in 1964, one of its twin towers was intended for Metro Toronto offices and the other for the City of Toronto; the two councils shared the central Council Chamber. Eventually this space proved inadequate and committee facilities and councillors' offices were relocated to 390 Bay Street, across from City Hall; Metro Council continued to meet in the City Hall council chamber. Finally, in 1992, the Metro government moved out of Toronto City Hall altogether and into a newly constructed Metro Hall at 55 John Street, which was designed by the architects Brisbin, Brook, Beynon.

The amalgamated council chose to meet at City Hall, though it temporarily met at Metro Hall while City Hall was retrofitted for the enlarged council. Metro Hall continues to be used as office space by the City of Toronto.

Services

The following is a list of services that were funded and provided by the Metro government:

In addition, the following agencies were Metro government agencies:

See also

External links

Metro Toronto | Historic counties of Ontario | Municipalidade da Região Metropolitana de Toronto

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Metropolitan Toronto".

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