A Fleeting Metropolitan Moment
During the COVID-19 pandemic, mayors and chairs from 11 of the 30 municipal governments in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) met a total of 76 times to share information, coordinate emergency measures, and collectively advocate to provincial and federal governments. The formation of the GTHA Mayors and Chairs group, as it was known, marked the most sustained and productive period of bottom-up, voluntary regional collaboration in the region’s history.
In a new paper for the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance (IMFG) called "A Fleeting Metropolitan Moment: Regional Governance and Municipal Collaboration in Greater Toronto during the COVID-19 Pandemic," Gabriel Eidelman and Jen Nelles document the dawn and demise of the GTHA Mayors and Chairs group, describing its functions and procedures, summarizing its achievements, and offering lessons about what it takes to build effective metropolitan governance.
The story of the GTHA Mayors and Chairs group is a tale of missed opportunity. The group demonstrated that informal, bottom-up regionalism is both possible and worthwhile. Local leaders across the GTHA came together and collaborated in ways rarely seen before. Had it endured, the group may have evolved from a forum for discussion and coordination to a true collaborative regional decision-making body.