NDP delays Ford’s plan to cut city council

The opposition New Democrats are using legislative procedural tactics to try to delay the Progressive Conservatives’ plan to cut the size of Toronto city council by almost half. NDP Leader Andrea Horwath’s party moved an amendment Tuesday that will stall passage of Premier Doug Ford’s controversial bill by at least two days.

“We are using every tool at our disposal to fight Doug Ford on this and give people more time to join that fight,” said Horwath, noting Ford did not broach the subject of slashing council during the June 7 election campaign.

As revealed by the Star last Thursday, the Tories are cutting the number of Toronto councillors from a planned 47 to 25 for the Oct. 22 municipal election.

Ford made the unilateral move in an effort to tackle what he called the “total gridlock at the city of Toronto.”

“We’re well on our way to make sure we have a good governance system and we get the city of Toronto back on track,” said the premier, whose party enjoys a majority in the legislature.

“We believe in streamlining the government. I will repeat: streamlining the government, making government work for the people, not the people working for the government; that’s their philosophy,” he said, attacking the New Democrats.

Some Ford allies have said shrinking the size of Toronto council is about cutting leftleaning politicians down to size.

Pointing to Liberal, NDP, and Tory party colours, he insisted this “isn’t about being red, orange or blue.”

“They’ve been down there for a number of years. They see nothing gets done. Transit wasn’t built under David Miller, it wasn’t built under Rob Ford and it wasn’t built under John Tory.”