What the judge said in the ruling on Doug Ford’s plan to cut size of Toronto council

Thestar.com
September 11, 2018

On Monday morning, Superior Court Justice Edward Belobaba released a ruling that stated Ontario’s Bill 5, the Better Local Government Act, infringed on Charter rights, and deemed it unconstitutional.

Here are highlights from the ruling:

Rain falls outside Toronto City Hall. Superior Court Justice Edward Belobaba struck down provincial legislation that would cut the size of Toronto city council, but Premier Doug Ford fought back by saying he will invoke the notwithstanding clause.

“It appears that Bill 5 was hurriedly enacted to take effect in the middle of the city’s election without much thought at all, more out of pique than principle.”

“The enactment of provincial legislation radically changing the number and size of a city’s electoral districts in the middle of the city’s election is without parallel in Canadian history.”

“It is only when a democratically elected government has clearly crossed the line that the ‘judicial umpire’ should intervene. The province has clearly crossed the line.”

“Once the province has entered the field and provided an electoral process, it may not suddenly and in the middle of this electoral process impose new rules that undermine an otherwise fair election and substantially interfere with the candidates’ freedom of expression.”

“The Supreme Court has stated time and again that ‘preserving the integrity of the election process is a pressing and substantial concern in a free and democratic society.’ Passing a law that changes the city’s electoral districts in the middle of its election and undermines the overall fairness of the election is antithetical to the core principles of our democracy.”

“The province’s rationale for moving to a 25-ward structure had been carefully considered and rejected by the TWBR (Toronto ward boundary review) and by city council just over a year ago. If there was a concern about the large size of some of the city’s wards (by my count, six wards had populations ranging from 70,000 to 97,000) why not deal with these six wards specifically? Why impose a solution (increasing all ward sizes to 111,000) that is far worse, in terms of achieving effective representation, than the original problem? And, again, why do so in the middle of the city’s election?”

“Crickets.”