My dad used to tell me the hardest part of parenting is that your key role is to teach your kids the skills required to leave the house and make their own decisions, but your primal instinct is to keep them close and protect them.

You can see this play out in every coming of age novel ever written. As tensions grows between a parent and their child, the burgeoning adult wants to break free from the shackles of youth, while the parent thinks they are not yet ready to take on new responsibilities.

Welcome to the last month (or several decades) of relations between Toronto’s City Hall and the Province of Ontario. The City of Toronto believes it is ready to shed its “short pants” and grow beyond the confines of being a “creature of the province.” Based on the existing City of Toronto Act, Queen’s Park agrees, sort of.

The Act gives Toronto the authority to take on a number of issues in the municipal sphere, including the right to introduce tolls on roads it owns. However, Toronto’s ability is limited by the amorphous spectre of “the provincial interest,” as the province retains a veto right and can shut down the city’s aspirations if the province deems it necessary.

This was the grand bargain struck in 2006 — in the absence of the city being able to articulate what specific powers it needed and wanted, it was given a broad authority to be creative and expansive, but the province retained a parental-like authority to rein them in.

So how’s that working out for us? A duly elected mayor and a duly elected city council decided to bring road tolls on to roads they own, only to be told by the province that they couldn’t do so.

This, despite a series of initiatives between the city and the province, agreeing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, tackle congestion and build transit to more efficiently move workers and goods across the region. In the face of such a multi-headed policy hydra, if a policy gets killed for political reasons at the provincial level it isn’t the city’s maturity we should be worried about.

Meanwhile, the city has taken little advantage of the powers it was given in the act some 10 years ago, likely because of jittery lawyers and threat of the looming scythe of the provincial veto to cut down municipal hopes and dreams.

The political and policy moment for a review and renewal of the act is now. The next provincial election is in the spring of 2018 with the municipal election several months after that. Before going to the polls, all three provincial parties need to take a stand on the relationship between the City of Toronto and the province. And the citizens of Toronto need to be able to vote on a council that can responsibly and effectively use any new powers given.

Why update the act now? The city, world class in many ways, is beginning to fray. You can feel it every day. Subway delays are not “longer than expected,” they are a routine. Public housing and municipal infrastructure are literally on fire and crumbling.

The city is tasked with fighting these fights with one hand tied behind its back, and we as citizens get to now watch the typical prebudget posturing where the mayor asks for funding that Toronto requires to keep the lights on. That has to change.

The need for a more autonomous Toronto, able to reach its full potential, has never been greater. Perhaps with a greater understanding brought on by 10 years of experience, the city will be able to better articulate its desires, and the province more willing to give it the sole authority to do so.

Ten years ago, the act was used as a balm to heal the wounds of amalgamation. The challenge today is fundamentally different, and a renewed act could be used as a platform to create the dialogue and institutions we require to build a true economic region that can compete globally. A City of Toronto Act revision could go beyond moving costs and powers from one column to another and reset the relationship to something approaching more equal orders of government.

Let’s believe the current hype about Canada generally and Toronto specifically. We are being lauded world wide for our strong social fabric, our openness to immigrants and how attractive we have become to the world’s talent pool.

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We need to build a city with the governance, funding and infrastructure required to not only welcome the world, but make it want to stay. It’s time to let Toronto grow up, leave the provincial house, and see what kind of city it can become.

Jamison Steeve is the executive director at Martin Prosperity Institute and the Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management.

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