Last week, Toronto's colourful Mayor, Mel Lastman, managed to stick-handle and impressive 52-1 vote in favour of pursuing "charter" status for his fair city. What is "charter" status you may ask Among other things, it would put Toronto on a privileged legal footing above other Ontario municipalities and allow it to collect more taxes or appropriate its share of provincial gas, sales and tobacco taxes.

At first glance, the arguments for "a charter" are compelling. Toronto (like most other Ontario cities) is still reeling from the effects of provincial downloading - some $257.1 million per year, principally in the areas of social welfare services, housing needs and public transportation.

Proponents of charter status for "the centre of the universe" argue that similar deals exist for other metropolitan centres like such as Vancouver, Winnipeg, Montreal and Saint John, New Brunswick.

But the province, which would ultimately grant Toronto its charter status if it was so inclined, wants no part of this debate. Queen's Park sent out Carleton-Gloucester MPP Brian Coburn -- the parliamentary assistant to Municipal Affairs Minister Tony Clement - to quickly put the kibosh on Toronto's dream.

Coburn was quoted in several newspapers basically saying, "no way, go away" to Mr. Lastman. Instead, Coburn said Toronto should look more closely at its operations to find efficiencies in service delivery and other areas if it wishes to resolve its budget pressures.

And Mr. Coburn knows of what he speaks. As the former Mayor of Cumberland (just east of Ottawa) he found efficiencies by partnering with the private sector for municipal museum management and recreation centres. He trimmed arts and culture budgets in favour of hard-core municipal services like snowplows and stop signs. He partnered with other neighbouring cities to find economies of scale for bulk municipal purchases. So finding savings and money can be done.

And let's not forget that Toronto already is bucking for the 2008 Olympic bid and proposing a $12 billion east-end waterfront rejuvenation and development mega-project to boot. As an aside, at last count over a dozen Toronto councilors have jetted over to Barcelona under the guise of looking at Olympic preparations and waterfront development. Perhaps Mayor Mel could take a look at the cross-Atlantic junkets of his council if he needs to find a few bucks.

Mr. Lastman's drive for charter status represents bad policy. Giving the city more power to tax (or grab its share of other levels of government's taxes) would be a colossal mistake. Keeping gas taxes in provincial jurisdiction ensures that they remain subject to Ontario's taxpayer protection legislation (meaning increase in gas taxes could only be approved by province-wide referendum). Putting this power into the hands of council that is showing an increasing appetite for mega-projects would be a bad move.

Another reason that this idea has come forward is due to the fact that we are in the midst of a municipal election year. With little or no opposition in front of him (sorry Mr. Nunziata, we just don't see your Mayoral campaign taking flight yet), Mayor Mel needs an enemy. And Queen's Park is as good as it gets. Look for unopposed or weakly opposed mayors around the province to mimic this strategy as well on various local issues.

Finally we turn to the competence question at Toronto city hall. By all media accounts, most councilors weren't sure what they were voting on last week when the charter question was debated over a two-day period. The province was right to say NO to Toronto's proposal. To paraphrase Mel when he used to pitch for the Bad Boy furniture company … this charter idea makes sense to NOOOBBOODDYY!