Toronto vs. everybody … or at least the Ontario government

The City of Toronto and the Ontario government are in a tussle … again. The fight is seemingly perpetual and it boils down to one big question: who gets to call the shots?

This time, it’s about control measures to slow the spread of the virus in the second wave. As caseloads surged in the fall across the GTA, Dr. Eileen De Villa, Toronto’s medical officer of health, called on to return Toronto to Stage 2 — closing indoor dining, bars, gyms and movie theatres. The Ontario government did eventually take that advice a full week later, but not before Premier Doug Ford publicly doubted Toronto Public Health’s data and another were recorded across Ontario.

This case is another instance of municipal-provincial tensions turned into public spats. In recent years, both sides have clashed over(under former Premier Kathleen Wynne) and infamously, the mid-provincial election in 2018 (under Premier Ford) that turned into a full-blown legal battle.

Each time, Toronto has been on the losing end with the province seemingly “bigfooting” the city on how it is run and what the province wants.

, city hall reporter for the Toronto Star, talks to Adrian Cheung about the push-and-pull relationship between City Hall and Queen’s Park, the powers Toronto actually has in controlling its fate and the case for “charter city” status for the economic recovery ahead.

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