Thank you very much to the member opposite for the presentation.

I have a question. It’s a bit of a hypothetical, because he wasn’t here during the previous government. But if he had been here during the previous government, and the previous government had introduced legislation that said, “We will give super powers to mayors so long as they follow our agenda,” do you believe that you and your colleagues would have supported that under the previous government?

Interestingly enough, we went to a place where I wanted to ask the question—when power gets expanded in one area, it always comes at the expense of something else. In this case, it comes at the expense of councillors. People go to the polls to vote for mayors, generally, for a vision overall, but, ultimately, for councillors to make local decisions.

Can you expand again a little bit, briefly, on why it’s important that councillors have a say, are respected and have power to be able to make decisions?

The balance of this debate, I think, has really shown us that:

(1) Once again, this government is debating legislation that they did not discuss during the campaign, no matter how substantive or how much of an impact it could have on municipalities.

(2) This is legislation that was not made in consultation with or even asked for by those it affects.

(3) It has nothing to do within—its title doesn’t reflect the bill because, as the wonderful member stated, it really just is about giving power that’s not even asked for to mayors who already have the power to win every single vote which they ever do.

(4) What they’re doing at the city of Toronto is, they’re approving thousands of units of developments that are at or above all the targets that are listed, but they claim that’s going to enable more of it to be built as long as the mayor does what the Premier says.

Again, knowing that this is a government that’s about power and control, knowing that they want to put power in the hands of fewer people, why do they want to give more power to mayors? Is it just so that they’ll do the bidding of this Premier?

I want to thank the member for her submission today. I want to draw a parallel to what this bill would be like if this was the province. I would like all people to consider this fact: The Premier of Ontario, arguably the most powerful person in Ontario, has one vote in this chamber—a single vote, no veto power—and yet despite this, through appointments and through the power that he has over his own government, he’s able to win every single vote in this chamber. He doesn’t require these other additions to his power; he’s able to do it in all the same ways that mayors do it to win all their votes in their own municipalities. Now, super powers are being given to mayors only if they fall in line with what the Premier of this province wants, who already gets everything he wants.

Do you see any concerns, given the priorities this government has shown to give these powers to mayors who are not even asking for it?