Superior Court judge strikes down legislation cutting the size of Toronto city council

Thestar.com
September 10, 2018
Jennifer Pagliaro

A judge has struck down legislation cutting the size of Toronto city council in another legal blow to Premier Doug Ford.

An appeal is likely, lawyers involved in the case and the judge himself noted. That leaves the upcoming election in an ongoing state of uncertainty.

Premier Doug Ford announced the Better Local Government Act, which slashed the number of seats on Toronto city council from 47 to 25, without warning on July 27.

The decision from Superior Court Justice Edward Belobaba comes just nine days after an Aug. 31 hearing where lawyers for the city and those representing groups of candidates, volunteers and community groups challenged the legislation on the grounds it was unconstitutional and violated Charter rights.

Belobaba had earlier promised to make speedy work of his ruling with the election looming Oct. 22 and nominations for council and school board trustee candidates set to close Sept. 14.

If the decision is appealed, it’s not clear if the election can proceed on the scheduled dates.

Advance polling, which has already been reduced to five days, is set to begin in just a month on Oct. 10. Council earlier instructed city lawyers to seek a postponement of the election if required.

The Court of Appeal would first have to agree to hear the case and then a hearing date would need to be set.

Ford, who was a one-term Toronto councillor in his brother Rob Ford’s administration, announced Bill 5, the Better Local Government Act, without warning on July 27. It altered existing legislation to cut the size of council to 25 wards from 47 for the upcoming election. It became law Aug. 14.

Lawyers for the city and others called the interference unprecedented and undemocratic, claiming the arbitrary and discriminatory move created a cloud over the upcoming election. It also infringed on the rights to freedom of expression, association and equality, some legal teams argued.

The province responded that the city had no constitutional status and was simply a “creature of the province,” which had the power to change the election process, their lawyers argued, for the better.

“When governments legislate, sometimes there are winners and losers,” provincial lawyer Robin Basu told the court in August.

Belobaba promised to keep an “open mind” at the beginning of the August hearing after receiving thousands of pages of legal arguments and case law. The hearing lasted nearly seven hours.

The decision is the second court ruling relating to a Ford government decision since his Progressive Conservatives came to power in June’s election.

In August, an Ontario judge ruled a plan to immediately end rebates for buyers of Tesla electric vehicles should be quashed, leading Ford’s government to agree that those buyers would be eligible for rebates if their vehicles had been delivered and registered by Sept. 10.