Fair election ‘virtually impossible’: city clerk

Ensuring a fair election in Toronto next month is becoming “virtually impossible,” the official in charge of the vote said Thursday as a battle with the province over the size of the city’s council raged on.

Toronto city clerk Ulli Watkiss said every delay between now and the Oct. 22 vote affects her ability to ensure fairness, regardless of whether Toronto’s electoral map will retain its current 47 wards, or 25, as the Ontario government wants.

“We have hit a tipping point,” Watkiss told Toronto councillors at a special session. “Both scenarios are becoming virtually impossible for us to carry out.”

The emergency meeting at City Hall was being held so local politicians could decide on their next steps a day after Premier Doug Ford and his Progressive Conservatives reintroduced councilcutting legislation that had been quashed by a judge, and invoked a rarely used constitutional provision to ensure the bill’s implementation.

Watkiss said delays in passing the legislation and the delivery of regulations to the city concerning Toronto’s looming election could further compound the matter.

“Frankly, the uncertainty is making this very difficult,” she said.

The city had challenged the province’s initial council-cutting legislation in court and a Toronto judge ruled earlier this week that passing the bill in the middle of municipal election campaign violated the freedom of expression rights for voters and candidates.

But Ford quickly announced he’d use the notwithstanding clause to override the ruling, and Toronto Mayor John Tory speaks in the council chamber at City Hall on Thursday as council sits to discuss the Ontario government’s introduction of legislation to reduce the size of Toronto’s city council.

also said his government would appeal the decision.

Municipal Affairs Minister Steve Clark said Thursday that he still believes the city can head to the polls as scheduled.

“I’m confident that my ministry and the clerk’s office will be able to work out any issues and will be able to have an election on Oct. 22,” he said at the legislature.

Clark would not say whether the province has a backup plan should the clerk find that the city cannot be ready in time, despite repeated questions on the issue.

The opposition parties have vowed to use procedural tools to delay the province’s council-cutting bill as much as possible. The

legislation has passed first reading and the Tory house leader has said it is expected to pass final reading on the week of Sept. 24.

Toronto Mayor John Tory, meanwhile, called the province’s actions are “wrong and unacceptable.”

“This overriding of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms raises very big questions on a matter such as this one and even bigger questions with regard to profoundly important matters that we may not even know about today that will come up in the future,” Tory said at city hall.

“We’re all here to keep standing up for Toronto and I know we’re all prepared to continue to do that because we

believe in this city.”

As Tory and councillors mulled their options, Canada’s big city mayors threw their support behind Toronto in its fight with the Ontario government.

The chair of the Big City Mayors’ Caucus at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities said Ford’s moves have now placed Canadians in a constitutional debate when the limits of how governments can work together within the document have not been tested.

“To see a Canadian province invoke the notwithstanding Clause to change the size of a city council, in the middle of an election campaign, is unprecedented,” Don Iveson said in a statement.