I listened with interest to your discussion about Toronto’s transportation woes this morning. Most of your callers look at City Council to solve the problem of ever increasing congestion on our streets and hope to see a better allocation of funds in order to ease the problem. This is a fine objective. However, powers granted in the Constitution only allows cities limited opportunities to manage their own affairs. In 1867 there were no big cities and the founding fathers put the provinces in charge of urban areas. 143 years later the old formula is still in place, – Toronto hands over billions of dollars to the Province and sees very little in return.

The world’s most successful cities, (most of them in Europe) are “city states” that are not subservient to higher levels of government. Toronto’s fortunes are not going to improve as long as the Constitution remains unchanged. In 1982 we had a chance but, sadly, no one was concerned with the future of the cities.

Keep up your good work,

Regards, Tom Denes, P.Eng.