‘Protecting trees’: Ford on city hall slimming
TORONTO • Debate raged at Toronto City Hall on Monday as local politicians weighed whether to wage a legal battle against the Ontario government over a controversial bill that would cut city council nearly in half just months before the fall municipal election.
Premier Doug Ford stunned both politicians and residents last week when he announced that he planned to reduce the number of council seats in the city to 25 from 47 while leaving council makeups in other major urban centres untouched.
The Progressive Conservative premier has said trimming council ranks would streamline the decision-making process and save Toronto taxpayers $25 million in councillor and staff salaries.
Speaking in the legislature Monday, Ford said he campaigned on reducing the size and cost of government so this move should come as no surprise.
“I talked to tens of thousands of people across this province, I talked to thousands of people in Toronto, and every single person I spoke to in Toronto said that city hall is dysfunctional,” Ford said.
“We don’t believe in bigger government. We don’t believe in more politicians or more bureaucracy. We’re going to make sure the City of Toronto finally runs more efficiently.”
He also highlighted other potential benefits to reducing the number of council seats.
“I can assure you that when we have 25 councillors, it’s going to be 500,000 less sheets of paper. I’m protecting the environment. I’m protecting trees,” he said.
One city councillor and longtime Ford ally suggested Monday there may be another motive for the move.
“There’s going to be less left-leaning politicians in the City of Toronto and that means it’s a great thing and it’s a great day for the taxpayer,” Coun. Giorgio Mammoliti said in a news conference to defend the plan.
While Mammoliti and a handful of like-minded councillors showed their support for the bill at the provincial legislature, their peers at city hall discussed their options to oppose the plan, which many have said was foisted on them unexpectedly after the city had already ruled against a similar proposal.
Municipal staff have suggested they could not make all the necessary changes in time for the Oct. 22 election, though Ontario’s municipal affairs minister said he had reached out to them and is confident they can work out any “transitional issues.”
Toronto Mayor John Tory kept the door open to mounting a court challenge against the province’s plan, saying he supports a motion tabled at city hall Monday that would see the city examine legal options to stall Ford’s proposed changes.
Scholars and lawyers have said that one of the ways to delay Ford’s plan from taking effect during the current campaign is to mount a legal challenge against the measures and seek a court injunction.
Tory said he’s open to “examining and pursuing” all legal options against the act.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath called Ford’s approach “dictatorial,” and said that while the premier has touted the need for consultation on other issues, such as the sexed curriculum, it’s clear he doesn’t want any on this proposed legislation.
“No matter how much he pretends that he wants to hear people’s voices, by shutting them out of a decision around their own democratic institutions is absolutely wrong,” she said.