De-Amalgamate Toronto

To Current and Prospective Members of the Legislative of Assembly of Ontario; In 1998, against the democratically expressed wishes of most of the city of Toronto, as well as those of East York, Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough and York, amalgamation was forced on us by the province. According to, then, municipal affairs minister Al Leach, it was to create a stronger, more unified Toronto. This is not what has happened. What we have instead is a situation where Toronto votes one way and the other municipalities vote the other. Either Toronto wins and governs for downtown, against the wishes of the suburbs or the suburbs win and govern against the wishes of downtown. This means that each successive municipal administration is left trying to undo the damage caused by the last. It has not made Toronto either stronger or more unified. In either case a significant portion of the population is left to the whims of a government that it voted against. In order for Toronto to make progress and become the kind of city it wants to be, and for the outlying areas to become the kind of municipalities they want to be it is necessary for the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to undo the damage done in 1998 and reverse the decision to amalgamate Toronto. Democracy is supposed to be a basic right for all Canadians and while we may not always get the government we want on the provincial or federal level, we should be entitled to the local government we want. So long as Toronto remains a single, amalgamated, municipality the majority of the city's residents will be denied that right for years at a time. As citizens of Toronto, the province of Ontario and of Canada we expect this issue to be discussed in the coming, October 2011, election and for legislation to reverse the amalgamation process to be introduced in 2012.