I'm not sure what you mean by "voice". I think in common use, you would mean power in government. This scheme was put into play because rest of Japan, in fact,

I'm not sure what you mean by "voice". I think in common use, you would mean power in government. This scheme was put into play because rest of Japan, in fact, has a louder voice than Tokyo: Tokyo and the regions could have resolved their differences through the democratic process, in which the regions outvote Tokyo and could have altered Japan’s national tax and economic policies to their advantage. Tokyo obviously doesn’t want this, and instead agreed to an opt-in system which allays some of the regions’ concerns. Doing some back of the napkin math wrt representatives in the House of Commons and senators, in Canada, the situation probably wouldn't be much different for Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto. In a lot of ways, this where the US is. NY (the city) foots the bill for not only most of NY (the state), but also its tax money funds projects and services in other states as well. Living in a US state's biggest city myself, it is a drag to see the rest of the state constantly block legislation that will help us grow, while on the flip side they are gladly taking our taxes, as we pay by far the most into the state's coffers. What I mean to say is, due to the way we pay local, state/province and federal taxes, the big cities are already a net positive in terms of tax revenue for the rest of the province/country.