Premier Doug Ford used his new government’s majority muscle Tuesday to push through a controversial bill cutting the size of Toronto city council in half with municipal elections just 10 weeks away, a move NDP Leader Andrea Horwath called “a blatant abuse of power.”
The legislation, named the Better Local Government Act, also scraps planned Oct. 22 elections for regional chairs in Peel, York, Niagara and Muskoka as it enlarges Toronto’s wards to match federal and provincial riding boundaries.
“We have 25 MPs, 25 MPPs and we’re going to have 25 councillors,” Premier Doug Ford said. (CHRIS YOUNG / THE CANADIAN PRESS)
“We have 25 MPs, 25 MPPs and we’re going to have 25 councillors,” Ford said in the legislature, which adjourned until Sept. 24 after a rare summer sitting that followed the Progressive Conservatives’ June election victory.
“The people want smaller government. … They want a city of Toronto that is functional, a city of Toronto that can build transit,” he added, insisting that having too many councillors has made debate on issues lengthy and cumbersome.
Horwath and other critics of the bill said it flouts local democracy — and noted Ford, who lost the Toronto mayoralty to John Tory in 2014, did not specifically campaign on the changes.
“Now he pretends like he was talking about it all along. … This is, by definition, a hidden agenda,” she thundered in the legislature during heated final debate, charging the premier is “drunk on power.”
