Shellene Drakes-Tull: Before railing at city hall, understand what your mayor and council can — and can’t — do - Toronto Star

Before you start railing at your mayor and council, premier, or prime minister, let’s ensure we’re railing at the right people.

“Before you start railing at your mayor and council, premier, or prime minister, let’s ensure we’re railing at the right people,” writes Shellene Drakes-Tull.

Shellene Drakes-Tull is a Toronto-based storyteller, educator and the founder of Sweet Lime Communications. Reach her via email: sdrakestull@gmail.com.

Last week, my youngest child came home and told me her class learned about the different levels of government.

She was very proud of herself — but she’s 11, so I expect this to be new information for her and her classmates. For us, the voters of Ontario, I would hope that we already knew about the levels of government.

As municipal elections are coming up next month, it is important that we understand who to hold responsible for what. It’s not surprising that there’s some confusion about who is in charge of what, because there is overlap with all levels of government and it’s not always as straightforward as we think.

So, let’s consider this a civics refresher before we head to the municipal polls at the end of October. Before you start railing at your mayor and council, premier, or prime minister, let’s ensure we’re railing at the right people.

Your municipal government is made up of your mayor, city, town, or regional council. These are the folks who collect your property taxes, maintain most local roads, organize your garbage and recycling each week, plan water and sewage, provide fire, police, and emergency services, remove snow from your neighbourhood streets, run public libraries, recreation centres and local transit system. The everyday things we need to run our lives.

How many of you remember the 2009 Toronto garbage strike?

The Toronto Transit Commission is a municipal service that your property taxes support, but other levels of government invest in the TTC through funding partnerships with the City of Toronto for major infrastructure projects and equipment purchases.

But things can get confusing. Municipalities get their powers from the province, which means Queen’s Park can intervene in local decisions. For example, Toronto’s bike lanes. Although local roads are normally a municipal responsibility, Ontario’s Bill 212 gave the province greater authority over municipal bike lanes and specifically directed the removal of lanes on portions of Bloor Street, Yonge Street and University Avenue.

The Ontario government makes laws and manages services that affect life across the province from Cornwall to Kenora. Many of our public services, such as health care, education, transportation and licensing, colleges and universities, justice and civil rights, provincial taxation and municipal governments are supervised by the provincial government.

Have a complaint about waits at your local hospital? That’s a provincial government issue. Highway 401 is full of potholes? Call your member of provincial parliament. Your child’s teachers are bargaining with the government? That would be the provincial government.

Finally, we have the federal government. The Canadian government is responsible for national and international matters that affect the entire country like national defence, passports and immigration (in conjunction with provincial governments), Indigenous and foreign affairs, criminal law (administering much of the justice system? Provincial. More overlap.), economy and currency, Canada Post, federal taxes and Employment Insurance.

Representing Canada on the world stage or making a speech at the European Union or the United Nations? That’s normally the prime minister or one of his designates. When changes are needed to Canadian currency — for instance, replacing Queen Elizabeth with King Charles’s image on the Canadian dollar — that is a federal government issue.

Now, this is a basic refresher because many of us don’t have a proper understanding of who oversees what — it’s been a while since our Grade 6 civic module. When we vote, we shouldn’t simply elect who we like best. We need the right people.

And if we’re going to hold them accountable, we should probably know what they’re responsible for.

So, before you blame the prime minister for your pothole, the premier for your garbage collection, or your mayor for your passport delay, check the syllabus.

There will be a test next week on who we’re complaining to about what.

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Opinion articles are based on the author’s interpretations and judgments of facts, data and events. More details

Shellene Drakes-Tull is a Toronto-based storyteller, educator and the founder of Sweet Lime Communications. Reach her via email: sdrakestull@gmail.com.