Court sides with province
Election proceeds with 25 wards
Ontario’s top court has sided with the provincial government in a legal battle over the size of Toronto’s council, firmly establishing a reduced 25-ward electoral map for the city’s looming municipal vote.
In suspending what it called a “dubious” lower court ruling that found the province’s move to cut council unconstitutional, the Court of Appeal for Ontario also did away with the Progressive Conservative government’s need to rush through reintroduced legislation on the matter.
That new legislation has drawn heavy criticism for invoking a constitutional provision known as the notwithstanding clause to ensure its passage, but the government said it now won’t move forward with the bill.
“It is time to put the political games behind us,” said Municipal Affairs Minister Steve Clark.
“We will continue working with the Toronto city clerk to provide every support possible to help with the administration of the election on Oct. 22.”
The province had argued that a stay — which allows city staff to abandon the 47-ward council model revived by the lower court ruling - was necessary to eliminate uncertainty surrounding the upcoming election.
The Court of Appeal agreed. “It is not in the public interest to permit the impending election to proceed on the basis of a dubious ruling that invalidates legislation duly passed by the legislature,” the three-judge panel wrote.
The appeal court rejected arguments from those opposed to the stay that the province was responsible for the chaos surrounding the election and thus shouldn’t be granted relief.
“We do not accept the respondents’ submission that,
because Ontario exercised its legislative authority to enact Bill 5, it does not have ‘clean hands’ and should not be entitled to the equitable relief of a stay from this court,” the panel wrote.
An Ontario judge last week found that the province’s Bill 5, which reduced Toronto city council to 25 seats from 47 in the middle of the election campaign, violated freedom of expression rights for candidates and voters.
Premier Doug Ford contested the ruling and took the
unprecedented step of invoking the notwithstanding clause in reintroduced legislation to push through with his plan.
The new bill won’t be up for a final vote until today at the earliest, but the province said it would “instead be moving on to other priorities” in light of the stay.
The province is also appealing the lower court ruling and lawyers said the case could be heard on an expedited basis in order to resolve the issue before a new council is sworn in on Dec. 1.