Toronto's Political Fault Lines

Political Fault Lines

Every society has fault lines that shape its political life. Often they are religious, racial or ethnic divisions. In Canada a fundamental fault line is around the French/English cultural and linguistic divide, and regionalism is a deep fault line that makes this country a very complicated place to govern.

The most fundamental fault line that affects almost every society is social class. The difference between rich and poor or working class and upper class underlies political life in virtually the entire developed world, Canada included. Much of the political debate in federal and provincial politics can only be understood as an economic struggle between competing class interests.

But what are the fault lines that shape Toronto’s municipal political life? Perhaps the best way to understand these social forces is to take a historical perspective.

Toronto: the Industrial City

Toronto emerged as a leading Canadian industrial city in the 1850s when the railway arrived. This led to a political climate where the promotion of the city’s manufacturing industries remained the political focus of the city’s political life. That era lasted for about one hundred years.

The domination by the Anglo/Protestant business group that ran the city was helped by the fact that during most of this period only people who owned property could vote. The dominant ideology of this business class was that economic growth would help everyone, including the working class and poor. It was believed that the role of government was to provide services and infrastructure so that industry could grow and prosper. The city encouraged business and gave priority to their issues. It built and maintained roads, provided transit, clean water, sewage, police protection, garbage collection and often gave grants or tax holidays to businesses.

The Protestant/Catholic fault line was also important during this period. The Orange Lodge controlled much of the city’s politics and their members easily made up the majority of the members of city council. As an example of how important this fault line was, only Protestants were members of the Toronto Police Force until well into the 20th century. This fault line helped the Anglo/Protestant business group to dominate the city because they were able to use the prejudice against Catholics as a way to mobilize voters and continue their dominance of the city’s political life.

Not everyone agreed that political power should be used to help the business elite of the city. Groups such as trade unions and workers’ associations competed for power with the business elite. They wanted better services to the poor and working class rather than servicing industry, but they were largely unsuccessful in their efforts. This struggle, however, reflects the dominant fault line of the period. The rich and powerful stood on one side and the poor and dispossessed were on the other side.

Toronto: the Developer’s City

After the Second World War Toronto’s economic base began to change. Manufacturing began to migrate out of the city to places like Scarborough and North York and later to the GTA regions of Peel, York and Durham. Toronto’s new economy became centered on white collar or administrative work. The banks employed thousands of people, many Canadian head offices with large numbers of white collar staff located in the downtown and government was a big employer.

These economic changes fundamentally changed the political life of the city. Rather than the business elite who dominated the industrial era, the new politicians were more likely to be professionals such as teachers, architects and lawyers.

Another fundamental change in the city’s political life was the creation of Toronto Metro Government in 1954, which included the old City of Toronto and the surrounding suburbs. This resulted in a complicated division of powers between local and metro levels of governments that few ordinary citizens understood. It soon became clear that there were fundamental political divisions between those people living in the city’s downtown and those in the suburbs. A new suburb/inner-city fault line was evident.

The issues facing cities and the way they were dealt with also changed. By the 1960s high rise towers were springing up everywhere in the downtown. The city was growing rapidly and this resulted in critical problems of transit and traffic. Above all there was the problem of development itself. Planning became the big issue but no one quite knew what type of city they should be planning or what should be the priorities.

In Toronto there seemed to be a movement away from the social class and the religion polarized politics of the industrial era, but that was an illusion. Deep political divisions remained in the city. On the one side was a group of politicians who were pro-development and supported highway construction because they believed that these priorities would lead to economic prosperity. They came to be known as the “old guard.” On the other side was the “reform group” who believed the city must invest in transit and opposed new expressways but they were not quite sure about new projects like high rise.

This polarization was along the class fault line but it was different than the old working class/upper class division. The old guard was pro-business, much like the Anglo/Protestant business group in the industrial era, but the reform group was a mixed bag. Most were strongly rooted in neighbourhoods, they tended to be the new councillors made up of professionals but some were still pro-business. Campaign donations to the old guard were mainly from developers and contractors while the reform groups got most of their donations from individuals. (The VoteToronto analysis of campaign contributions of councillors for 2000 and 2003 illustrates this division.)

Two watershed issues or events define this era. One was the issue of the Spadina Expressway. Metro Council, dominated by politicians from the suburbs, supported the expressway which was to plunge through old Toronto neighbourhoods. On the other hand the expressway was strongly opposed by the reformers and people in the downtown. When the expressway was cancelled in June 1971 by the Bill Davis provincial government it was seen as a clear victory of the reform group.

The other event was the election of David Crombie, a reformer, as mayor of the City of Toronto in 1972. This seemed to be a complete victory of the reform group and was hailed as the beginning of a new era of municipal politics not only in Toronto but across Ontario. For a moment it appeared that a new reform political consensus had emerged in the city.

One difficulty the reform group faced was that they did not have a clear consensus or program that unified them. Toronto was growing at a hectic pace and council could not simply turn off development. Wealthy developers continued to have huge influence in the political life of the city and particularly on Metro Council. Official plans were created by the city but they seemed to be immediately broken. Height restrictions on buildings were amended almost before they were voted into place. There seemed to be no consensus on how the city should be governed. The reform movement faltered even when they had the majority on the City of Toronto Council.

David Crombie was succeeded as mayor in 1978 by John Sewell, who was even more radical than his predecessor, but the period of reform politics was short lived. With the election of Art Eggleton as mayor in 1980, the reform movement seemed dead. It was business as usual with the old guard and the developers in control.

The domination of business appeared to be complete in 1997 when the Mike Harris provincial government amalgamated the Metro level of government with the six lower tier municipalities to create the new City of Toronto. The majority of people on councils in the suburbs were pro-business and it appeared that the downtown reformers would inevitably be overwhelmed.

One apparent aim of amalgamation was an attempt by the Harris government to crush downtown reformers. The suburbs have a different politics than the inner-city. They vote in higher numbers and tend to be more conservative. People in the downtown struggle with issues such as homelessness, excessive housing costs, traffic, the drug trade and problems of development. Almost all of these issues are absent in the suburbs. The most important issue for people in the suburbs is taxes. Amalgamation created a new political fault line in the city pitting the inner-city against the suburbs.

With the election of Mel Lastman as mayor of the amalgamated city in 1997, it seemed like the domination of the suburbs was complete and the city was delivered up to the development industry. The Lastman group gave developers virtually free reign and their profits were staggering. The majority of councillors acted as if the role of city council was to provide approvals to developers as quickly and inexpensively as possible. Lobbying by powerful business groups was rampant, and as the computer leasing scandal illustrated, corruption was not unusual. It was as if the reform movement had never existed.

A twin set of fault lines had come to dominate Toronto’s political life: social class and the suburb/inner-city division. Lastman used his position as a leader of the suburbs to take power, and once Mayor he and his friends used their political power to favour the developers and business elite of the city.

Open Politics and the Livable City

It is perhaps too early to say that a new politics has emerged in Toronto with the election of David Miller as mayor in 2003, but the political debate in the city has significantly shifted in the last three years. Miller is attempting to build a large political tent that bridges the fault lines of class and the suburb/inner-city split and stake out a new type of politics in the city.

Although David Miller is from the left, and a member of the New Democratic Party, his politics are not the politics of the reformers. The mayor, and the ten or eleven supporters on council who he can count on for votes, are not opposed to development. In fact they welcome and encourage it, but the type of development is very important to them. Miller advocates two key approaches: open and transparent government and projects should be judged on whether they contribute to a livable city.

The issue of the expansion of the Toronto Island Airport is a good example of these politics. In the Mel Lastman council, most councillors were in favour of building a bridge to the Island Airport and supported a huge expansion of the airport because they claimed it would be good for the economic development of the city and of course it was good for their friends. That was the old pro-developer politics. Miller rejected this and argued against the bridge. In his 2003 campaign for mayor he criticized Island Airport expansion as a backroom deal that was not compatible with the objective of a livable city that values the quality of life of its citizens. This argument resonated with the population and Miller become mayor.

Since the election the mayor has emphasized good government and has sought increased revenues from higher levels of government, but the creation of a livable city is still his priority. The Miller council is not opposed to development. It has approved vast new projects along the Waterfront and in the Railways Lands. Condo development east of Yonge Street in the downtown is intense. The city is being rebuilt from the centre core outwards.

Miller is presenting the twin solutions of open government and the livable city as a way of building a broad new consensus that vaults over divisions of social class and the suburb/inner-city split. It is unlikely that he can do this for long. Divisions in a large complex city such as Toronto are deep and new political fault lines along racial, ethnic and religious divisions could well develop. Only time will tell the story if he can bring about a new politics that bridges the fault lines of the city.