Hon. Brent Cotter: Honourable senators, I rise to speak in support of the thrust of Senator Simons’s inquiry regarding municipalities in Canada. I will speak to five themes in my remarks. So that the thread will not be lost — and particularly not lost to me — I will announce them as I get to them. The five themes are identity; history; economic and social influence; autonomy and subsidiarity and community.

You will be familiar with speakers whose remarks proceed from the sublime to the ridiculous. Today I will try to do the opposite; that is, I will start with the ridiculous and try to move to the sublime. Wish me luck.

I have two stories about identity. In September 1971, I had taken the train from Saskatoon to Halifax. It was my first day of law school at Dalhousie University. I was sitting in the student lounge. My future friend Senator Wetston was probably there, but I didn’t know him at the time. Indeed, I knew no one. I was extremely insecure and unsure of myself.

Another student walked over and introduced himself to me. He said, “Hi, I’m Jim McPherson.” I introduced myself and he then asked where I was from. I replied, “Moose Jaw.” And he said he was from Lunenburg. He said, “We have many traditions and ways of being in Lunenburg, and I am sure you have many traditions and ways of being in Moose Jaw; but,” he said, “one of the traditions that we don’t have in Lunenburg is that we don’t go around with our flies down.”

I run the risk in telling this story that you will only remember that punchline and in future check whether my fly is down. But I’d like you to remember a different point, at least for today.

When it came to identifying ourselves, both Jim and I referenced the town or city we were from — where, essentially, our identities started.

Here’s a more serious story: I served for a number of years as the Deputy Minister of Intergovernmental and Aboriginal Affairs in the Government of Saskatchewan. During the first year in the position, I was invited to make a presentation to the provincial cabinet and the premier. I wanted to make my first point regarding isolation; that is, the two solitudes that existed and, in my view, still exist between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities and people in Saskatchewan, and to communicate something that had bothered me for years.

I handed out to each cabinet minister and the premier a Saskatchewan highway map and asked them to locate on the map the village of Herschel, Saskatchewan. Everybody found it within seconds. It was the home of my then-minister Bernie Wiens, a village of perhaps 30 people.

I then asked them to find “IR41.” There followed much confusion. I gave hints. We eventually got there: IR41 is the Poundmaker Cree Nation, a community at that time of 1,041 people with an historic and honourable name in our history. I have a portrait of Chief Poundmaker in my office. But our highway maps dignified this community with a number, and not even a name. To the credit of Premier Romanow, he immediately pointed to the Minister of Highways and said, “fix this.” He understood that our identities are deeply connected with our communities.

We identify with our communities. We take pride in them. Our communities matter. Their health and prosperity matter today more than ever.

My next theme is history. In 1867, Canada was a predominantly rural country. Nearly 85% of Canadians lived in rural areas. Ottawa was a town of 18,000. Our biggest city, Montreal, had a population of 107,000; and Toronto, 56,000. In case you are wondering, Moose Jaw, in 1867, had a population of zero. It didn’t then exist.

Towns and cities were not unimportant in 1867, but they were not what they are today. It is not surprising, therefore, when the British North America Act, 1867 was written, civic leaders were not at the table and matters of local concern were assigned not to these relatively insignificant towns and cities, but to provinces. And as we have seen only too clearly in recent court cases, towns and cities — essentially the creations of provinces — even as large as Toronto are sometimes left to the whims of provincial inclination.

Today we see a complete reversal of that picture. Residents of urban areas now make up over 80% of the Canadian population, a percentage that has been rising almost uninterrupted for decades. The town of Ottawa, that 18,000-person town, is now home to 1,017,000 people. Toronto’s population, that 56,000‑person place, is now 2.794 million people. The city of Moose Jaw, I’m sure you are anxious to know, is the home of 33,655 wonderful people.

Now, on to economic and social influence. Our towns and cities are nothing like the communities of 1867. They are much larger, more dynamic, more central to our culture and more engaged in the delivery of services to our citizens. Urban centres are now more than ever engines of our economy. There are a few highlights to emphasize the point.

The City of Saskatoon operates the largest bus service in Saskatchewan. The budget of the City of Toronto is $13.53 billion. In Toronto there are over 800,000 businesses. It is home to 38% of Canada’s business headquarters and a $364 billion economy which represents 20% of Canada’s GDP.

Remarkable as that seems, urban Canada continues to grow and prosper, despite its modest status constitutionally as creatures of the provinces, an historical curiosity of 105 years’ standing.

As we hear from civic leaders and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities on a regular basis, it is a challenge for them. For example, the revenue backbone of our Canadian municipalities is property taxes. They account for 32% to 60% of the municipal revenue depending on the city and the province.

It often feels to me that the two key revenue sources for my city of Saskatoon are property taxes and parking tickets; sadly, I contribute to each.

More seriously, we need to take these issues seriously in a principled and long-term way.

The next theme of my speech is subsidiarity. One of the governing principles in the establishment of our country was that of subsidiarity; that is or was that functions performed effectively by subordinate or local organizations — here, I invite you to think of towns or cities — belong more properly to them than to the dominant central organization. Here I invite you to think of the provincial or federal government.

This was the central basis upon which, in the assignment of powers in the Canadian constitution, matters of a so-called local or private nature were assigned to the so-called subordinate organization at that time — the provinces, but not towns or cities.

When one thinks about the present, however, if we were to design a governance regime for our country on the basis, among others, of the principle of subsidiarity, we would be likely to provide much greater responsibility and autonomy to our urban governments.

Now, we are not going to rewrite the Constitution to restructure this modern reality through constitutional means, but there are other ways. Many have reflected on how this might be done. I don’t have a magic-bullet answer, but it must be based on a recognition — and partnerships on the part of the federal and provincial governments — to achieve organized, structural and stable modernization of the legal and governance authorities for towns and cities, as well as stable, long-term access to fiscal resources, to enable our cities to deliver so many government services critical to our citizens. This should include long-term fiscal framework agreements — not so much piecemeal but long-term fiscal framework agreements. It should include structured access to new revenue sources. It could include new authorities for our cities.

Let me provide one example, which we discussed at the Agriculture and Forestry Committee a short while ago with Mayor Braun of the City of Abbotsford. I served for a few years as Saskatchewan’s deputy minister of municipal affairs. As I mention these different positions, you might be thinking, “This is a guy who couldn’t hold a job,” and you might be right.

In my first year there, we rewrote The Cities Act of Saskatchewan to give cities the status and authority, within limits, of “natural persons” — essentially turning the grant of governing authority upside down. Rather than granting only specific powers, The Cities Act gave urban municipalities in Saskatchewan sweeping authority except where specifically limited in the legislation.

There are many other ideas out there to strengthen and vitalize our cities from wiser commentators than me.

My last point is about community. All of these ideas, and many other possibilities, are proffered to strengthen our communities — and it cannot be overstated how important that is for us, for our communities and for our country.

I am reminded of remarks delivered in a slightly different context by my friend John Whyte but which I think are relevant to this important conversation, particularly in terms of what governments can and must do together to build our society and country. Mr. Whyte once said, more eloquently than I could ever do:

A nation is built when the communities that comprise it make commitments to it, when they forego choices and opportunities on behalf of a nation, . . . when the communities that comprise it make compromises, when they offer each other guarantees, when they make transfers and perhaps more pointedly, when they receive from others the benefits of national solidarity. The threads of a thousand acts of accommodation are the fabric of a nation. . . .

In conclusion, let me say simply that we at all levels of government owe to our municipalities acts of accommodation — acts that benefit us all and that, woven together, comprise the fabric of a wonderful nation. Thank you, hiy hiy.

(On motion of Senator Martin, debate adjourned.)

(At 5:34 p.m., the Senate was continued until May 31, 2022, at 2 p.m.)