It didn’t take Doug Ford long to discredit himself as Premier of Ontario and turn his “for the people” slogan into the hollow sham it seemed to be from the get go.
Less than 100 days into his four-year mandate, he scrapped the province’s guaranteed income pilot project, rolled sex education in schools back by years and dumped the cap-and-trade charge on carbon fuels.
By doing so, he established himself as an adversary of the vulnerable, a champion of ignorance and an enemy of green energy initiatives funded by carbon levies.
The economically disadvantaged, environmentalists and vulnerable pubescent teenagers clearly aren’t among “the people” for whom Ford is governing. None of this was a surprise because he openly declared his intentions on these issues during the provincial election campaign.
His recent mugging of Toronto’s city councillors and voters was an unexpected bombshell, however. There was no talk of it during the campaign. No one saw it coming; it was Ford’s own personal, secret agenda.
Why the rookie premier would want to take a sledgehammer to the city government of Canada’s largest city in the midst of a municipal election campaign is dumbfounding. If he wanted to reduce the size of Toronto council and reconstruct the city’s wards, why not do it with due consideration for the next election? Why the big rush?
Most likely, Ford wanted to catch potential opponents off guard before they could organize any resistance. Ambush them, in other words, because he can’t wait to impose his will on Toronto.
His attempt to fastball the change has only served to galvanize people who still believe we live in a democracy. Invoking the “notwithstanding” clause in the Canadian constitution for what’s obviously a personal political battle has outraged many Ontarians, indeed Canadians across the country, including former prominent political leaders of all stripes
Ford has used napalm instead of bug spray on what is a regional municipal/provincial issue. It’s not national, not something that merits using the “notwithstanding” clause in the Canadian constitution. It’s clear he’s driving this particular agenda and dragging his Conservative Party cabinet and caucus into the mud along with him.
In doing so, he has tarnished the reputations of such colleagues as Christine Elliott, Vic Fedeli and Rod Phillips who have long been considered moderate, reasonable people. It’s sad to see them following Ford like witless lemmings. And it’s sad to see Caroline Mulroney, attorney general and first time MPP, looking like Donald Trump’s mouthpiece, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, as she gamely tries to justify this indefensible fiasco.
If you’ve ever wondered why good people follow tyrants, this is another example to ponder. Not a single Conservative MPP has said publicly: “If we’re going to do this, let’s hit the pause button and do it right.”
It’s Ford’s issue and they are going along with their bully leader to get along with him, likely feeling they can’t undermine the newly minted premier for fear of making him and their party look incredibly bad so soon after taking office. They don’t want to be in Ford’s crosshairs, either, relegated to lame duck status for the next four years for disloyalty.
There’s much speculation about why Ford made the size of Toronto city council such a big deal, so important that he couldn’t wait to get at it.
Publicly, Ford has trumpeted the stock Conservative argument about cost and efficiency, arguing Toronto council costs taxpayers too much and is dysfunctional because it’s too big. Ergo, it needs to be downsized from 47 wards to 25.
The cost argument is bogus. At $192,505 for the mayor and $114,306 each for 47 councillors, Toronto has paid about $5.3 million for its politicians in the past year. Although that sounds like a lot, as a percentage of a $12.2 billion city budget it’s a drop in the bucket, only .043%. The cost of governance is tiny even if you include the salaries of staff who directly support councillors, considerably less than one-tenth of one per cent in total.
If cost isn’t really an issue, what about efficiency? While fewer councillors could make for faster decisions, it’s not a given. Fewer councillors means bigger wards with councillors representing twice as many people as they do now. Bigger wards escalate the cost of running for office, cutting the potential pool of candidates, many of whom can’t afford to pay for more signs, more pamphlets, more online and traditional advertising, etc. Suddenly, campaigns that cost $20,000 soar to the $50,000 range and move beyond the funding of candidates by families and friends to organizations with a lot of members, like political parties.
In short, larger wards and fewer councillors are less democratic than what Toronto has now. Doug Ford is okay with that. For him, it’s payback time. He lost his bid to be mayor in 2014 to John Tory. Toronto council reigned in the shenanigans of the Ford brothers when Rob went off the rails due to substance abuse during his term as mayor. And Toronto has steadfastly rebuffed the so-called Ford Nation at the polls, unlike 905 municipalities around the city.
Ford listed his targets this week when he decried “leftists” on council and claimed New Democratic Party leader Andrea Horwath was opposing his assault on the city government “to protect her crony buddies: Michael Layton, Joe Cressy, Gord Perks.”
It was Ford who named names, not Horwath, who denounced his “petty vendetta” and attack on local democracy, including the use of the constitutional sledgehammer. Hopefully, the electorate will soon look favourably on those councillors Ford so shamelessly targeted. Maybe voters will ask their Conservative MPPs why they so willingly caved into Ford on this issue. And let them know their acquiescence will forever be a stain on their political careers.
For a guy who claims to be a guardian of tax dollars, Ford now seems ready to spend big dollars for costly court challenges or whatever it takes to bend Toronto city council to his will. The current boondoggle was entirely avoidable, a fiasco entirely of Ford’s making. He could have waited to exact his revenge. Instead, he dropped a bomb on Toronto, causing unnecessary chaos with an undemocratic sneak attack.
Joe, good explanations. Thanks
Joe
Good article. You need facebook and twitter links on your blog page to help share more widely.
Good advice on the links. Just did it.
But it seems to me that an argument can be made that the analysis of all Charter Challenges shows the evolution of a set of principles that can guide all judges when evaluating Charter challenges.
For instance, it seems to me that over time there has been an expectation that all magistrates will engage in a process defined by specific questions in the process of judging a challenge. In order to arrive at a ruling consistent with the Charter,, it appears that magistrates routinely analyze the impact of a law (or proposed law) by asking specific questions in a specific sequence:
a) First, they ask “What is the problem that a law is designed to address or remedy?”. Is there truly a problem that requires a law or legislation to be enacted.
b) Second, they ask “Does the legislation introduced actually address or remedy the problem that has been identified as requiring remediation with a law?”
c) Third, they then turn to the question “Does that proposed remediation violate any of the principles specifically outlined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms?”.
d) And finally, they consider the moral question “Does the proposed remediation of an identified problem by specific legislation merit temporary limitation or even permanent limits on guarantees specified by the Rights identified in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms?”
Furthermore, magistrates and the courts are also obligated to consider how other long-standing principles of “justice” should apply. Although evaluating whether a rule conforms to standards of Justice and Fairness is complicated, it is also clear that our social contract expects that Justice must be correctly done when a) the Rules are Fair and are accepted and/or b) the Process for evaluating thhosee gaps in t rules are turned over to a fair and impartial “arbiter” (magistrates, tribunals, special counsel, panels etc). The Charter of Rights and Freedoms defines the values that Canadians hold to be true and unassailable, and those principles have become part of our identity (with at least 90% support). However, the written law cannot anticipate all specific circumstances in an evolving society, and ambiguity often emerges in the interpretation of a value or when principles come in conflict, and there must be a safety valve to resolve the conflict. Common law, and jurisprudential principles then support the principle that “conflicts” may be resolved by turning to a “fair and impartial” arbiter OR by referring the matter to Parliament to resolve the conflict with amended legislation.
Magistrates understand these principles, and have been consistent in applying them since the Charter of Rights and Freedoms came into force in 1982. Their rulings consistently support the principles mentioned above. But furthermore, magistrates and courts have evolved over centuries guided by common law principles delineating the meaning of Good Law.
a) A good law must be general and apply universally as opposed to targeting one specific subgroup or one section of the population.
b) Laws will be judged to be good by both (i) adherence to moral standards AND (ii) by availability of a fair and reasonable process to resolve conflicts..
It’s clear to me that the Ontario Government’s draconian introduction of Bill 31 can be challenged on the basis of all of the general principles described above. Here is a fast overview”
a) Where is there evidence of a problem in Toronto? Why has that problem identified uniquely for Toronto. The clear answer is NO. There was no consultation, no discussion, and no evidence presented about inefficiency. Furthermore, the Premier made it very clear that he is targeting central Toronto and specific councilors. He said this directly in Question period and it is recorded in Hansard.
b) Will the reduction in Council size solve the problem that has been identified by the Ontario Government. No evidence has been provided that 25 Councilors are more efficient. In fact, the current workload and expectations of councilors suggests the opposite will be true – i.e. less service
c) Are there higher principles violated by the introduction of legislation. This is more difficult, but there are also at least two Supreme Court rulings arguing that electoral boundaries must be “approximately equal”. Why are Toronto councilors expected to represent 106,000 residents while some jurisdictions under the Municipal Act allow other jurisdictions to represent as few as 6,000. Furthermore, the Federal ridings and Provincial ridings do NOT overlap because there is a recognition that the representation at each level involves different relationships with constituents. Based on citizen needs, the city councilors should represent fewer people than either an MP or MPP (MLA).
d) The Ontario Law specifically targets Toronto, and does not apply to other Ontario Municipalities. Is there a justification for this?
e) The Ontario Legislation was introduced in the middle of an electoral process and disrupted that process, and it was introduced without consideration or discussion of the impact on those involved. The result was the introduction of chaos and roadblocks placed in the way of everyone seeking to run for election. The result is chaos for citizens who are unaware of their ward, and unaware of who is running to represent them.
I fully expect that the Court of Appeals will uphold the original ruling by Magistrate Belobaba. If it does not, I would encourage Toronto City Council and other defenders of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.
A well-reasoned, well-written article. Doug Ford should be spending his time finding ways to improve social services, health care and education rather than mounting a Charter challenge to assuage his municipal loss four years ago.
That would be government “for the people.” Right on, Anne!
Comprehensive. Thorough. Instructive. Thanks, Jim.
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