Legislative Assembly, Ontario.

• Author: Decker, Todd

If one word describes the Spring 1997 sitting of the Ontario Assembly, it would be `unusual'.

In the first instance, because of a motion passed in the House late in 1996, the Assembly began the Spring Sessional period on January 13. Ordinarily, the House would not have met until the third Monday in March. However, the government of Premier Michael Harris wanted the House to resume earlier in order to deal with the organizational structure of the province's municipalities and school boards, the financing of these, and the amalgamation of the seven municipalities of Metropolitan Toronto into one. Once the necessary alteration to the parliamentary calendar was proposed and passed, the House was set to meet in mid-January.

During the first week of the Spring sitting, the government brought in a number of Bills to accomplish its municipal restructuring. Partly because the Toronto amalgamation, introduced earlier, was anticipated to result in a "megacity", and partly because of the significant nature of the other legislation, this week came to be known as "Megaweek".

Controversial bills were introduced that revised the funding arrangements for schools. The province removed the cost of education from municipal property taxes and took it over completely while at the same time divesting the control and funding of general welfare into the municipalities. The legislation also introduced an Actual Value Assessment system for determining the amount of tax to be levied on each property in the province; proposed fundamental changes to the province's 20-year-old rent control system, eliminating it completely on new construction or vacated apartments. Another bill revised the control and responsibilities for community libraries. Water and sewage service, police services and the administration of provincial offences were also the subject of many changes.

The primary focus of the Spring Session proved to be the City of Toronto amalgamation legislation. Bill 103 was considered in the Standing Committee on General Government under the terms of a time allocation motion, which provided that the Bill would be referred to the Committee of the Whole House once it was reported from the committee. The time allocation motion provided for one hour of consideration in Committee of the Whole House, at which point the Chair of the Committee would put every question necessary to dispose of the Committee of the Whole stage. The time allocation motion also required that any proposed amendments to be dealt with in Committee of the Whole had to be filed by 2:00 p.m. on the day that the order for Committee of the Whole's consideration of the Bill was called. Between them, the two opposition parties filed...