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Jennifer Keesmaat's Toronto

animatronic said:
I don’t see why a constitutional amendment would be used vs simple delegation via provincial act - like they did last time.

Only conceivable way would be in response to a massive BQ-style or Catalan-esque protest movement but can’t imagine we’d get to that
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I tend to agree. Toronto was granted a number of new powers a few years ago, many of which they chose not to exercise. I'm not that familiar with the legislation and I don't know if the province had to approve - I recall talk about road tolls that the province disallowed but I don't know if that was captured by the legislation. There also might be constitutional limits to what the province can devolve, even if both parties are agreeable.
 
animatronic said:
I don’t see why a constitutional amendment would be used vs simple delegation via provincial act - like they did last time.
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Like 'who' "did last time"?

The mechanisms possible or not have all been discussed in detail in this and other UT strings.
 
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Hey, with all this Secession talk, maybe this will be Mayor Keesmaat's Council Chamber ;-)
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lenaitch said:
I'm certainly no constitutional or political expert but no doubt legal professors plus other self-appointed experts will geek out on this in opinion columns and peer publications. I believe the Section 43 process was used by Newfoundland and possibly Quebec to abolish their parochial schools. And I suppose it could be used for, say, Quebec and Newfoundland & Labrador to sort out their boundary issue if they ever so choose, but it would be interesting for those experts to weigh in on whether creating a 'province but not a province' would be allowed by this Section. In order to successfully devolve powers and authorities, the city/region/not-quite-a-province would have to have the authority to levy taxes, duties and tariffs in order to pay for them, and many of them are only allowed to provinces under the constitution. Would the constitution allow for provincial jurisdiction to be transferred to a non-province? Would the new entity be eligible for transfer or equalization payments (or alternatively, have to contribute to them to benefit other provinces)? Would the new regional entity go from being a child of the province to being a child of the federal government? I don't know. Interesting moot court topic for aspiring lawyers.
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No new province would be created. Instead the Ontario Provincial Parliament would be reconstituted along federal lines, with a new upper house comprised of representatives of the super-regions (who would vote en bloc). Jurisdiction would generally be concurrent with certain issues prevailing at one or the other level. Admittedly, this is more or less exactly the German federal system, but why not go with that?
 
JGHali said:
No new province would be created. Instead the Ontario Provincial Parliament would be reconstituted along federal lines, with a new upper house comprised of representatives of the super-regions (who would vote en bloc). Jurisdiction would generally be concurrent with certain issues prevailing at one or the other level. Admittedly, this is more or less exactly the German federal system, but why not go with that?
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Something I like about our provincial system is unicameral legislatures.

I'm not big on forcing bills to go through six readings, to me that dilutes accountability and creates excuses for inaction.

I don't mind alternate checks and balances.

For instance I've often thought the threshold for passing any law should be 50% (plus one) of the seats in the legislature voting yes, as opposed to a winning number with lots of empty seats.

I also have long felt that criminal law, in particular law that allow for prison ought to be subject to a higher threshold. The notion of jailing someone for something 49% of the population might be fine with seems absurd.

60% plus one? 70%?

But I digress.

Secession isn't on for a host of reasons.

But what may be on is rattling the case of the rest of the province to obtain a bit more power and enshrine that power in the constitution by consent of the province of Ontario.
 
"For instance I've often thought the threshold for passing any law should be 50% (plus one) of the seats in the legislature voting yes, as opposed to a winning number with lots of empty seats."
Basically you just want everyone to be in the legislature for all the votes? Sure you can do that, but that doesn't change anything except the logistics of passing things, and it would slow things down a bit during flu season, and if your seat count was close, none of the Ministers could travel when the house was open.

How would that help?
 
Filip said:
LOL!

Torontonians blowing car bombs in Kingston for the separation of their clay.
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Dude....worse.

The seat of the government of the jurisdiction we'd be seceding from is in the place that wants to secede.

Like having Ankara in Kurdistan or Madrid in the Basque Country. Geeeeeeze, that'd be messed up.
 
Thorns_Embrace said:
As a Scarborough resident, what idea has Jennifer Keesmaat pushed that would help my life at all?
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Good question.
I have no idea.

Being a Scarberian isn't much of a qualifier though, so it might be hard to answer that. There are many, many, many other (usually more important) characteristics of one's life that are better qualifiers for discerning whether or not a certain policy would help or hinder.

I mean, other than the same hate for the Gardiner (no, that's a lie, I hate it more) as me and a belief in building up our high streets, I'm not sure she has much for me either.
I like her because she seems to be a very rational and sensible person. Unfortunately, that's now an accomplishment as opposed to being a matter of course.

Anyone on what she's got for us?
 
Northern Light said:
For instance I've often thought the threshold for passing any law should be 50% (plus one) of the seats in the legislature voting yes, as opposed to a winning number with lots of empty seats.

[quoteI also have long felt that criminal law, in particular law that allow for prison ought to be subject to a higher threshold. The notion of jailing someone for something 49% of the population might be fine with seems absurd.
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Seems? It IS absurd. Our electoral system doesn't help this injustice at all, by the way.


60% plus one? 70%?
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How about enough votes representing 2/3 of the population of Ontario?


Minority rule is toxic to society.
 
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