No matter who the mayor of Toronto is, no matter whether they are seen as good, bad or indifferent, they are powerless compared to the mayors of major American cities such as New York and Chicago.

This is because Toronto is the legislative stepchild of the province of Ontario, and no Ontario premier is about to let the city “grow up” by gaining more direct control over its own destiny.

A thoroughly competent, effective mayor of Toronto would be a powerful rival to the premier of the province and thus become a troublesome political competitor. No premier will allow that rivalry to blossom.

New York, Chicago and Toronto are obviously of considerable economic and political significance so it ought to follow that their mayors should have real political power. But of the three, only the mayors of NYC and Chicago do.

Even geography plays a part: Toronto City Hall is a short 1.4 kilometre jaunt from Queen's Park. Both are close to all major media outlets, as well as the business and social elites.

This very tight physical proximity naturally puts the mayor and the premier in direct competition. On the other hand, NYC is about 252 kilometres from the state legislature in Albany and Chicago is about 320 kilometres from Springfield, the capital of Illinois, allowing the mayors and governors their own political turf.

Let's compare the appointment powers of the mayor of Toronto with those of the mayor of New York.

The mayor of Toronto appoints the committee chairs from the council who then form his executive committee, but it has even less power than the mayor, and has been a revolving door as councillors fall in and out of favour or sour on the experience.

On the other hand, the mayor of New York appoints a large number of powerful officials, including commissioners who head 50 city departments, as well as “deputy mayors,” of which there are curently seven.

And even the deputy mayors of New York have real power. Similar to cabinet ministers, they are responsible for a wide and important range of matters including economic development, health and human services, education and community development, legal affairs, relations with other levels of government and operations.

Toronto’s mayor and his executive committee are legislative weaklings in comparison.

Here’s one example: the mayor of Toronto and the city have no power to impose toll roads within Toronto but the province does. Mayor Ford is on the record as opposing toll roads in a recent phone call with Premier Kathleen Wynne.

But Wynne likes the idea of toll roads, and if she can convince at least one other party at Queen’s Park to support her minority government on the issue, toll roads there will be, no matter what the mayor or council think.

The fact is, the province and the premier have the final political say over anything of major importance in Toronto. Toronto and its mayor are on the shortest of provincial tethers.

So what does this mean for Toronto? It means that no matter whether Rob Ford is re-elected or one of his rumoured opponents vanquishes him, the powers and responsibilities of the mayor of Toronto will continue to be hobbled by the realities of provincial politics: Queen’s Park, no matter who is sitting in the premier’s chair, is not about to create a competing centre of political power in its own backyard.

It’s very unlikely that Toronto’s mayor will ever enjoy political clout similar to that wielded by the mayors of New York City or Chicago.

American writer James Fallows might as well have been writing about Toronto when he penned the following in The Atlantic in its January/February 2010 issue:

"Our government is old and broken and dysfunctional and may even be beyond repair. … Our only sane choice is to muddle through.

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This means making the best of our situation, thinking through our options – respecting the innate fact that they are subject to dysfunction and prone to upheaval."

That being so, Torontonians should not expect that its mayor, current or future, unpopular or popular, will in fact have the political tools to do what needs to be done to “fix” Toronto’s problems, because the tool kit is sitting in the office of the premier.

Jeffrey Davies is a Toronto planning lawyer and urban affairs expert and a partner at Davies Howe Partners LLP.

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