How far will Ford go to get his way?

By invoking the nuclear option, the premier is cheapening and weakening the Constitution

Democracy is what I say it is. No matter what a judge says. Notwithstanding the Charter of Rights.

So says Doug Ford, who will be the first Ontario premier to override the Charter’s freedom of expression protections. Ever.

In a devastating court ruling on Monday, a judge disallowed Ford’s hasty attempt — proclaimed in the middle of a municipal election campaign — to slash Toronto city council in half.

Enraged by that humiliating judicial setback, the premier unleashed a torrent of personal, political and constitutional abuse the likes of which have never before been seen in this province. In doing so, Ford has set a depressing precedent for future abuse — by lowering the bar for judicial discourse and constitutional overrides to the most mundane level of partisan politics.

On what vital issue is he pressing the constitution’s nuclear button — invoking the rarely used “notwithstanding clause” that allows politicians to overwrite a fundamental right?

The answer (to repeat): His government abruptly decided to redraw Toronto’s electoral boundaries, halving the representation at city hall because Ford deems it dysfunctional — without warning, in the middle of the municipal election, long after candidates had already started campaigning and fundraising.

It’s an issue so supposedly critical that Ford completely forgot to mention it during his own provincial campaign — the one he claims as a mandate for constitutional carte blanche.

But it’s an issue that long stuck in the craw of Ford, ever since his days as a blustering, blundering councillor trying to muscle in on the office of the mayor — his late brother Rob — while berating his fellow councillors and trying to cut them down to size. Ever since he was defeated by John Tory for the mayoralty four years ago.

Why bother? Why raise the constitutional stakes so high for an issue that ranks so low with most people?

Because he can. Reincarnated as the provincial politician who won his party leadership by a hair, and then dislodged the unpopular Liberals from the premier’s chair, Ford has the power at Queen’s Park that he never had before to get his way in his old city hall haunts.

For the next four years, Ford insisted Monday, he must have a clear runway to fix a so-called “dysfunctional” city hall, even if that means cascading constitutional chaos, emergency sessions of the legislature, flying MPPs in on short notice, hiring lawyers to lose more court cases — about 10 lawsuits at last count. Because that’s his definition of democracy — a place where the people rule, not judges.

As Ford keeps raging and repeating, cities are the constitutional creation of the provinces — a legislative anachronism that gives licence to the premier’s diktats. No constitutional scholars, and certainly not Superior Court Justice Edward Belobaba, dispute that the province has the power to legislate over cities, and that the cities have little recourse.

Unless provinces breach the Charter of Rights. Which is what Queen’s Park did when it acted not merely unilaterally but precipitously, not just unfairly but unconstitutionally.

Just because a city is the province’s creation does not mean it can act malignantly, any more than a parent can behave improperly toward their own child. Cities, like children, are not chattel.

An override of the Charter rights was always meant to be an exceptional move. By invoking it now, on such a stunningly transient issue, Ford has diluted the currency of the constitution, opening the door to future overrides whenever his opponents get a rise out of him.

Indeed, the premier refused to rule it out if he loses yet more litigation. When asked if he’d use it again to bar the updated sex-ed curriculum, he wouldn’t be specific, but boasted, “I won’t be shy.”

For the next four years, Ford insists his mandate lets him use everything in his constitutional “tool box” to defy judges who dare to disallow his legislation. We have glimpsed the future under Ford, and it looks very much like the Ford of the past, four years ago, before he conscripted professional handlers to keep him tightly scripted during the provincial campaign.

Today, ward boundaries. Tomorrow, sex education. How far will he go? Just watch him.