Toronto awaits the results of its bid for Amazon HQ2, having surpassed Montreal in the race to house the online retailer’s new headquarters. This incident is a mere update to the longstanding rivalry between Canada’s two largest cities – one which solidifies Toronto’s status as the country’s economic epicentre.

Historically, Montreal was Canada’s longstanding financial and business hub, anchored in the founding of financial institutions in the early 1880s. Managed by Anglo-Quebecer businesspeople, French-speaking municipal officials was appeased with the arrangement so long as the anglophones’ business acumen benefitted the city.

By the 1960s, this symbiotic relationship began deteriorating – as did Montreal’s finances. In “Québec: Le défi économique,” Jacques Fortin says that Montreal’s inability to transition away from traditional industries of clothing, shoes and textiles laid the groundwork for its economic demise: from the mid-1960s until 1981, Montreal’s unemployment rate was three times higher than Toronto’s. This was aggravated by American corporations’ choice to invest in Toronto, owing to its geographical proximity to major American cities and to the lingua franca of commerce: English.

Meanwhile, spiteful feelings were building among Montreal’s citizens. Results from the federal Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism in 1966 had more of a polarising effect than a reconciliatory one: it revealed that unilingual Anglo-Quebecers earned an average salary of $6,049 – nearly 95 per cent more than unilingual ($3,107) Franco-Quebecers, and 34 per cent more than bilingual Quebecers ($4,523).

By the time the Quiet Revolution began, tensions were anchored on the Parti Québécois’ slogan “Maîtres chez nous.” In 1977, separatist premier René Lévesque concretized rumbling societal tensions into Bill 101, a French language policy that drove Anglophone business out of the province, headlined by financial institutions who relocated their headquarters to Toronto. Ironically, the list includes Bank of Montreal, founded in Quebec in 1817, and Royal Bank of Canada.

When Sun Life Assurance Co. joined the exodus in 1978, it cemented the economic swinging of the pendulum away from Montreal. Brokers at the Montreal Stock Exchange called it “Black Friday” on Montreal’s already sluggish economy, while Quebec finance minister Jacques Parizeau reprimanded Sun Life as “one of the worst corporate citizens Quebec has ever known.”

According to the Fraser Institute’s report, “Interprovincial Migration in Canada: Quebeckers Vote with Their Feet,” an average of 13,238 more Quebecers emigrated from than immigrated into the province, making it the only province to have experienced a yearly loss from 1971/72 to 2014/15. Emigrants numbers peaked in 1977/78 at 46,429 – coinciding with Bill 101’s implementation.

As the French would say, Toronto truly ‘profited’ from the influx of businesses, according to Statistics Canada data. From 1976 to 1982, individual accounts rose nine-and-a-half-fold to $4.4-billion from cashed cheques. In comparison, Montreal saw a threefold increase to under $800-million during that time.

Between 1972 and 1980, the Toronto CMA’s value of exported goods increased by 166 per cent while the number of manufacturing establishments increased by 17 per cent.

In retail sales of the period, Toronto again had the upper hand on Montreal: there were 1.3 chain stores to serve every 1,000 Torontonians, compared with 0.9 stores per 1,000 Montrealers.

Nathaniel Baum-Snow, a specialist in labour economics and economic geography, indicates that the French-language barrier is a burdensome regulation in Quebec that will continue to dissuade businesses.

“The Quebec government has made the choice that they prefer primacy of the French language over economic primacy,” says the associate professor of economic analysis and policy at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. “They will have to grow organically within these confines to become a stronger business location. That will be a slow process… They will not be able to attract much English dominated business from elsewhere in any case.”

Ottawa was gifted a $4.7-million surplus towards social services by the Ontario government – and nobody on the receiving end knows why.

The provincial government is projected to fully fund the Social Services branch’s ‘Council Priorities’ category in 2018 – an increase from 97.2 per cent last year, according to figures in Ottawa’s 2018 municipal draft budget.

The funding is filed under the ambiguous category, ‘provincial upload.’ The City’s media relations department did not respond to a request for a financial breakdown.

The ‘Council Priorities’ amount makes up $5.2 million of increased revenue over last year, or 43 per cent of this year’s total change in revenue of $12.2-million. Based on the tabled 2018 draft budget, the extra revenue will be reinvested in the 2018 Social Services budget, lowering the branch’s net spending by over 15 per cent compared to 2017.

Coun. Riley Brockington, vice-chair of the Community and Protective Services Committee, appeared to be unaware of the surplus.

“It’s odd that the City would be able to make such a significant increase on its own, because we get our funding from taxpayers and we’re trying to keep things at two per cent,” he said.

Presented with the budget table, Brockington declined to comment on the numbers. He said he was unfamiliar with the finances of the committee – one for which he is vice-chair.

“Usually these questions are sent to our city staff – they’re the experts in that subject matter and they can give you a very detailed explanation,” he said. “I really need to send this chart to social services – I need to get staff to explain before I can do an interview.”

Similarly, the office of Coun. Diane Deans, chair of the Community and Protective Services Committee, asked that budget questions be sent to the City’s media relations department. Deans was unwilling to give comment after multiple attempts to contact her office by phone, email and in person.

READ: Ontario Works Program opens eligibility to thousands more applicants

Looking over the budget tables, Christopher Waddell said the Social Service’s branch’s financial activity is based largely on the Ontario Works program, whose eligibility criteria was expanded in September 2017.

“If they’ve changed the rules so that more people can apply, it’s logical to think that they would then increase the amount of money that’s available, because they expect more people are going to be applying,” said the Carty Chair in Business and Financial Journalism at Carleton University.

The social assistance program is run by the province. Funds are distributed through various city councils, including Ottawa’s.

Given the approaching provincial election in June, there may be other motivations behind the Ontario government’s gift.

“That may let more people benefit [from the Ontario Works funding] and people may think, ‘Well, that’s a good reason to re-elect these guys,’” Waddell said.

“Now [the City] will take that four-million and spend it on something else for sure, but that’s what it is.”

Does Waddell have any ideas before the final funding amount is revealed by the provincial budget in the spring?

“One thing that everybody seems to be talking about and worried about is that the O-Train might be running over budget. So anything they can do on that front, it may go up there. But who knows – it’s a big piece of the pie, and this is a little tiny sliver of it.”

In times of increasing need for social supports, news of the multi-million dollar funding comes unexpectedly to social service organizations.

Simone Thibault is the executive director of Centretown Community Health Centre. She had not been aware of the surplus, and the news is encouraging for her organization.

“I’m very surprised!” Thibault exclaimed. “It would be interesting to see where that came from.”

Thibault would use a portion of funds to train her social support workers, who serve LGBTQ refugees, opioid addicts, street youth, those with severe mental illness, and many others with diverse needs.

“I think we’re at a tipping point in the city,” Thibault said. “Beyond the housing crisis, we have a social support crisis, because all of the community social service agencies – whether it’s [Centretown Community Health Centre] or our partners – are struggling to keep up with demand and are under-resourced – badly.

“We are the nation’s capital – we have the opportunity to show how we’re a compassionate, caring city, and we need to come together.”

Funding amounts will be confirmed when the provincial government releases its 2018 operating budget by April.