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Toronto’s Casino Debate: Governing ‘Local’ in Law and Space
Alexandra Flynn Osgoode Hall Law School
AAG Conference (April 21-‐25, 2015)
1. Empirical QuesAon: What role did social movements play in the casino debate? 2. TheoreAcal quesAon: How did social movements inform the meaning of ‘local’ in Toronto, from both a governance and jurisdicNonal perspecNve?
[T]he definiNonal work of "community" is accomplished intrinsically – at the borders between places. The legal rules for incorporaNng or excluding others generate both a community's idenNty and its claim to self-‐govern. … If it is the case that community (as a normaNve concept) and communiNes (as a descripNve one) are products of contested boundary-‐creaNng norms in demarcated space, then the choice for courts and policy-‐makers is not between respect for the local or the force of the universal, but between the compeNng force of alternaNve localisms.
Richard Schragger, The Limits of Localism
Source: City Manager’s PresentaNon (2015 Budget)
GOVERNANCE
Community Councils
Source: OLG ModernizaNon Plan Gaming Zone Maps (2012)
2012-‐13 Casino Debate
Source: City Manager: New Casino & ConvenNon Development in Toronto (May 2013)
Focus of Staff Review
Ernst & Young, Poten@al Commercial Casino in Toronto (October 26, 2012)
Community Council SubcommiIee
Planning Downtown
City Manager, New Casino & Conven-on Development in Toronto, CC30.1 (April 5, 2013) at 32
Others?
This dynamic understanding of the relaNonship between the "local" community and other forms of community affiliaNon (regional, naNonal, transnaNonal, internaNonal, cosmopolitan) permits us to conceptualize legal jurisdicNon in terms of social interacNons that are fluid processes, not moNonless demarcaNons frozen in Nme and space. -‐ Paul Schiff Berman
Concluding remarks
1. Toronto has a messy governance model conNngent on social movements
2. ConnecNons to diverse geographies suggest re-‐thinking singular ‘local’ idenNNes
3. ConcepNons of Toronto as a global city played out in social movement imagery
4. Technologies of law and social movements were diverse and overlapping
