Now that the centre&right political class machine has kicked into high gear in its collective attempt to ensure that Zohran Mamdani does not become mayor of New York City in November, the excitement of his upset victory in the Democratic primary a couple weeks ago over the tattered and tatty disgraced former governor, Andrew Cuomo, has lost some of its pep if not luster. What, under normal circumstances, should be a relative cakewalk to Gracie Mansion is now littered with landmines planted by outright xenophobia, outrageous rantings from the White House and an ossified Democratic Party establishment, not liking its rampant complacency and ineffectual liberalism exposed for what it is by young, whippersnapper upstarts. In a grim period of 24-7 bad news, the outburst of optimism of Mamdani’s primary victory was fun while it lasted, set aside now for the grueling road ahead with relentless enemy fire coming from all directions for the next four months.

But at least the race has been injected with hope and possibility. I watch the Mamdani campaign with my jaundiced Toronto eyes, thinking, we’ve been shorn of such things, hope and possibility. Fresh starts and new beginnings. There’s not much call for that around these parts, at least not from inside the house where there’s an unshakeable belief that our city once stood strong and exemplary, back there in the 1970s or so, and if we just remain rigid and anchored to that period of time, resist the lure of the new and fangled like bike lanes, pedestrianized streets and transit corridors, we’ll be alright, jack. No need for new blood in these parts, with their new ideas and new approaches.

If the rot of local governance was simply rooted in our wilted and limping John Torys and Olivia Chows, in the castoff husks of politicians floating down from senior levels of government, that would be one thing. A combatable problem that could be organized against, contested. A positive outcome improbable but never impossible. You might not realize it yet but there are Momdanis somewhere in our political ranks.

But Toronto, like every other municipality in Ontario, has a much bigger and, arguably at the moment, more insurmountable obstacle to achieving better local governance: the provincial government. As we have seen since 2018, cities (not to mention school boards) are pretty much helpless in the face of whimsical and injurious behaviour from Queen’s Park. Cuts reconfiguring the composition of city council in the midst of a municipal election campaign. Ranked ballots? Not on Doug Ford’s watch, you don’t. Threats to rip up bike lanes. Public places and spaces privatized and shuttered. Zoning law changes subject to political machinations rather than common sense or common good. Transit plans gutted and rejigged according to gut feelings and best developer outcomes not best practices.

And on and on.

Even if Toronto did manage to elect its own version of a Zohran Mamdani, just what policies of this hypothetical new mayor of Toronto that ran contrary to imperious views of a premier like Doug Ford would survive?

The short answer, the only answer is none.

The Premier of Ontario is the de facto mayor of Toronto. And Whitby. And Kitchener. And Smith’s Falls. And Kenora. And the Soo and Sarnia.

Local governance in this province is a mere ancillary to Queen’s Park. In all ways subordinate and subsidiary. It gets to be the face of the boring and prosaic aspects of service delivery. Picks up the garbage and fills the potholes and police budget. It valiantly attempts to make the trains and buses run on time.

When any of these things go awry, fizzles or flops, municipal governments wear the face of failure.

Some rake to faces are most certainly of a city council’s doing. Maintaining property tax rates at or below the rate of inflation undermines its ability to provide services and programs. Withering in the face of a vocal minority braying against new and necessary zoning laws or bus lanes or speed cameras, reinforces an unhealthy, unfair status quo. Self-inflected wounds.

In the end, though, as we have all witnessed over the course of the past 7 years, anything and everything, any initiative, bold or tepid, undertaken by City Hall, can be entirely ripped up and undone by provincial government fiat with no other justification other than Because It Can, and Because It Will. Why? Because municipalities lack any sort of ‘independent constitutional status’ and thus have been interpreted by the courts to be nothing more than ‘creatures of the province’.

But rarely has this imbalance been so vociferously pursued as it has been by Doug Ford. At least since Mike Harris forcefully amalgamated the six separate cities of Toronto into one in 1997. Usually, provincial governments have sought to use softer power in their dealings with municipalities, going as far as Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals did to address some of these iniquities, with its City of Toronto Act in 2006, granting City Hall more autonomy over things like taxation. But with little legal force behind it, the gesture turned out to be worth less than the document it was written on.

With the elected positions largely so ceremonial, why would anyone wanting to positively and perhaps even transformatively serve the public ever bother to run for city council here in Ontario? What would be the sense of a potential Mamdani putting in the time and effort to contribute to the well-being of the city when all those efforts could be rolled back and nullified by a premier bearing petty grievances? How much satisfaction can anyone get winning moral victories?

We in Ontario have local government in name only.

And the problem with fixing the situation, if it’s a problem many of us want fixed, is that the power to do so lies with the level of government that holds that power. The province. And what government willingly gives up power?

There are plenty of good arguments against anything approaching full municipal autonomy. I’m unsure of any jurisdiction anywhere in the world where such an arrangement exists. Singapore, maybe? Liechtenstein? Monaco? Vatican City, I guess. City states.

But there are places, New York City being one of them, that have much more power to shape their futures than cities of Ontario do. While state levels of government and the feds to a certain degree are able to stick their fingers in the mix, these cities have much more flexibility and freedom to make decisions for themselves. Witness the push and pull of New York’s recent congestion fee. Versus that with Toronto’s timid approach to tolling the expressways in and out of the core of the city. Liberal government at Queen’s Park. Nope. Doug Ford. Nope, nope, nope. Over his dead body.

It seems wholly anti-democratic, especially since the situation is the result of court interpretations rather than any sort of constitutional or legislative designation. There have been attempts at chipping away at it through the courts. The amalgamation fight in 1997. Ford’s attack on Toronto’s city council in 2018. But so far to no avail. Perhaps taking on the question of ‘creatures of the province’ as a whole rather than by piecemeal, specific items might successfully challenge our governmental imbalance. A political party taking up the cause of local emancipation as part of their platform could also get the ball rolling although, I won’t be holding my breath in expectation on that front. Why change the game when you’re holding all the cards?

Until such a time, a time where local governance can actually, you know, govern fully without looking over its shoulder, waiting for daddy’s permission, it seems in vain to hope for a Toronto version of Zohran Momdani. It would be a vast waste of great potential.