XXII:1,2 (Spring-Summer/printemps-été 1999

The U niversity of W estern Onta rio London, ON N6A 5C2 During the 1990s the provincial governm ents of both Q uebec an d Ontario established task forces to recommend new arrangements for the governance of their largest metropo litan areas, M ontreal and Toron to respectively. The task forces (Pichette and Golden) faced remarkably similar political environments and arrived at similar conclusions. Despite the fact that the Montreal task force was appointed earlier and reported earlier, its impact appears to have been minimal. Meanwhile, Toron to has experienced an explosive debate about the creation through amalgamation of the "megacity", in part because such a course of action was not contemplated by the To ronto task force. With much less publicity, the Ontario government has since proceeded to establish the Greater Toronto Services Board (GT SB), the first municipal institutio n in Canad a that transcend s and includ es two-tier mun icipalities. Just as the GTSB is beginning to function, debates about metropolitan governance in Montreal have begun anew. This paper briefly describes the historical backgro und to governance arrangements in the two urba n regions, exp lores in some de tail the similarities in the work of the two task forc es, and attem pts to explain why the outcomes appear to have been so different. Some scholars have already tried to show how theory relating to urban political eco nomy app lies to the organ isational chan ges in To ronto (K eil 1998