Council considers taking Ford to court
Premier stands firm, says ‘it’s like a comedy show down at city hall’
There’s a new sheriff in town.
Brandishing his political clout, recently elected Premier Doug Ford is unilaterally slashing the number of councillors at Toronto city hall, and cancelling democratic elections for regional chairs in Peel, York, Niagara and Muskoka.
Ford’s disruption of civic elections on Friday triggered an eruption in municipal politics across the GTHA. In one surprise development, Jennifer Keesmaat, Toronto’s outspoken former chief planner, entered the city’s mayoral race and will take on John Tory.
Toronto city council is debating going to court to fight Ford’s abrupt plan.
No decision was made Friday evening — council voted to recess till Monday — but a number of options were on the table, including Coun. Joe Cressy’s motion to take legal action and Mayor John Tory’s motion to request a referendum before the October municipal election.
But, according to provincial rules, the deadline for a referendum question to be put on the ballot has already passed.
As first disclosed by the Star, Ford will cut council from 47 members to 25 and is dealing a body blow to a political enemy, Patrick Brown, his predecessor as Progressive Conservative leader, who was a front-runner for the Peel post.
With those hopes dashed, Brown immediately registered to run for mayor of Brampton against Linda Jeffrey.
Ford, who never discussed his plans during the June 7 election campaign, signalled that he is more powerful than any municipal leader and suggested civic governments could effectively be run from Queen’s Park.
“We’re going to get things done. We’re going to run city hall a lot more efficiently than before,” the premier told reporters 12 hours after the Star revealed his sweeping changes.
“No one has ever said to me: ‘Doug, we need more politicians,’ ” said Ford.
“In fact, it’s the opposite. People tell me that we have too many politicians making it harder to get things done, making it harder to get things built, making it harder to deal with the real problems we face,” he said.
Ford, a one-term Toronto councillor while his late brother, Rob Ford, was mayor from 2010 to 2014, said he was fed up with the “hours and hours of endless debate … all of it taking place on the taxpayer’s dime.
“It’s clear that the size of government is just too large.”
City wards will mirror provincial and federal riding boundaries if the legislation, which will be tabled Monday, is passed.
But Ford, whose Tories toppled former premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals on June 7, danced around questions about why he never once told voters during the campaign that he would make such dramatic moves.
“Very clearly I did. I … I was very clear when I said, ‘We’re going to reduce the size and cost of government,’ ” he said when asked repeatedly why he did not disclose the scheme to voters.
“This is something I fought for while I was at city hall and something I continue to believe.”
The premier denied that he was settling political scores with rivals like Brown and Tory, who defeated him in the 2014 mayoral election.
“People don’t care about politicians. They care about getting things done,” he said. “The last thing the families, businesses and municipal leaders in these regions need is another layer of politicians.”
Until Brown’s surprise resignation on Jan. 24, Ford was planning to run for mayor against Tory, again, this Oct. 22.
“It’s like a comedy show down at city hall,” he said, referring to the unwieldy meetings and stalled initiatives such as public transit.
“For too long, the people of Toronto have watched city council go around in circles and fail to act on the critical issues facing the city and, as a result, infrastructure crumbles, housing backlogs grow and transit isn’t built.”
Ford warned “it will only get worse if Toronto city council grows from 44 to 47 councillors.”
“More politicians is not the answer, no matter who the mayor is,” he said.
While the deadline for candidates entering the Toronto race was Friday at 2 p.m., that will be reopened and extended until Sept. 14.
The Toronto mayor was unimpressed.
“It is my job to stand up for the people of Toronto,” Tory said in his city hall office. “You don’t change the rules in the middle of the game. That is not right and that is not fair.” NDP Leader Andrea Horwath blasted Ford for acting without any consultation.
“It appears that Doug Ford cooked up a backroom plot to use his new power to meddle in municipal elections. He didn’t campaign on it. He didn’t consult people on it,” Horwath said.
“It’s clear that Mr. Ford wants a smaller number of councillors to have more power, fewer checks and balances, and less accountability. This is obvious- ly a move to make it easier for the premier to control Toronto city hall,” she said. “The actions … Mr. Ford plans to take not only mean less accountability and transparency at city hall, but that each Torontonian will have less help and less access to their city councillor.”
Horwath also expressed outrage at Ford for targeting Brown in Peel and former Liberal cabinet minister Steven Del Duca, the front-runner in York.
Municipal Affairs Minister Steve Clark, who is pushing the so-called Better Local Government Act, stressed that “when it comes to the regional governments in York, Peel, Niagara and Muskoka, we are … taking a pause.”
“We’re going to return to the appointed system that existed before 2016. The other, more mature regional governments that were in place in Durham, Halton and Waterloo will not be impacted by these changes,” Clark said. “But what we are going to do, during this pause, is take a long look at regional government across the province. Where things have worked and where they haven’t, and to figure out how we can do things better,” he said.
The Liberal caucus derided Ford’s “perplexing last-minute scheme to meddle in Ontario’s municipal election,” saying it is “gravely concerning.”
“It creates chaos at a time when Ontarians need to come together,” the Liberals said.
“This is a highly undemocratic proposal. Rather than respecting the process that the city of Toronto and regions have gone through, and rather than respecting the people who have raised funds and paid out of pocket to campaign for election, the Ford government is unilaterally ramming through a last-minute, massive change to Ontario’s electoral map.”