KICKED OUT!
Waterloo’s Catherine Fife among MPPs removed //
WATERLOO REGION — Wednesday’s raucous emergency session of the Ontario Legislature to reintroduce the government’s contentious bill to slash the number of Toronto city councillors culminated with Waterloo NDP MPP Catherine Fife being kicked out of the legislature, along with most of her party.
Fife, first elected in 2012 and her party’s jobs, employment, research and innovation critic, was removed Wednesday afternoon, along with party Leader Andrea Horwath and many other NDP members for banging their desks in an effort to delay the introduction of Bill 31, The Efficient Local Government Act.
The bill contains the controversial notwithstanding clause after a judge originally ruled it violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and will reduce the number of Toronto city councillors from 47 to 25.
“We wanted to disrupt it and slow the passage of that bill, so we were intentional on disrupting the reading of the legislation,” said Fife in an interview just moments after being kicked out. “I’ve never been kicked out before.”
The notwithstanding clause of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms gives provincial or federal governments the ability to set aside certain portions of the charter to pass their legislative agendas.
The bill passed first reading Wednesday afternoon 63-17 with the support of two local PC MPPs, Mike Harris Jr. (Kitchener Conestoga) and Belinda Karahalios (Cambridge). PC MPP Amy Fee (Kitchener South-Hespeler) was not in the legislature Wednesday.
MPPs were recalled for the emergency session after the bill, previously known as Bill 5, was struck down Monday by Justice Edward Belobab.
He said “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.”
In an email to the Record Tuesday, Harris Jr. confirmed he would vote in favour of the bill Wednesday.
“Though I have a great deal of respect for our judicial system, I believe this judge’s decision to overturn an act passed by Ontario’s elected representatives is deeply concerning to the people of this province,” and it was within the legal power of the province to enact the clause, he said.
Fee is away on a trip this week and was unavailable for comment, and Karahalios did not respond to interview requests but was in the legislature Wednesday afternoon for the vote.
Fife said she’s received more than 250 emails this week from constituents worried about Premier Doug Ford’s plan. Ontario has not used the clause since the charter was passed in 1982.
And Fife said it was meant to be used for emergencies.
“There’s a reason it hasn’t been used in 35 years,” she said in an interview Tuesday.
Wednesday’s sitting was a chaotic affair as protesters were led away in handcuffs and the public viewing gallery was cleared by security in the morning.
Kitchener Centre NDP MPP Laura Mae Lindo was one of a handful of her party’s representatives not kicked out Wednesday.
“This is now a debate about the kind of leadership that we expect from our elected officials,” she said Tuesday.
Fife said she’s still reaching out to PC MPPs across the aisle to convince them to vote against the final reading of the legislation, likely next Wednesday or Thursday.
“I need the citizens of Cambridge, Kitchener Conestoga and Kitchener South-Hespeler to put pressure on their PC MPPs to vote against Bill 31 and the notwithstanding clause,” she said.