He did cut the number of cabinet post as compared to previous Ontario Liberal government!
Sobering Thoughts on Section 33
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If Ford wanted to cut politicians and save the province money he should have started provincially, not attacking the city of Toronto during an election.
This would have saved everyone in Toronto 50 cents each, its not about the money.
PornAddict;6218659PS Using the nonwithstanding clause is the greatest day for Ontario...finally we can stop the political correctness and let government make laws not Judge make law! said:
The important words here are "timely fashion". I cannot imagine any Party but the PCs introducing such a measure without taking the proper amount of time to determine what the people of Toronto actually wanted for their City government. That would be some combination of public forums, and polls as well as consultations with the current Government (which the Province once decreed as 'the best' government for the City). IF that was the mistake the PC's claim, it's a mistake that shows there's no reason to trust the current scheme to be any better. Why not consult instead of doing iot secretively and in the dead of night?
Even a perfunctory version of that "timely fashion" might make it impossible to enact before the current Election. However there's no reason at all the resulting Better Bill for Better Government couldn't also schedule one special Election, if the democratic sentiment said the benefits were wanted that soon. How your "timely fashion" would be best fitted into the standard Parliamentary routine of three readings and Committee study and report that are meant to provide for consultation, and before would be an ordinary matter of scheduling.
Forcing it through without notice or debate as the PCs are doing, as if it was some vital emergency measure needed to keep the barbarians from breaking down the gates at any second, would not arise. Of course, since all the other Parties can be assumed to actually practice the democracy we all talk about, if the consultations established there was no appetite for change, they'd likely let the Big Plan quietly fade, although they might still pass some minor tweaks that allowed them to say the whole thing was a success.
But to address your: What if it was the PCs defending the status quo? That would depend why they were defending it, and the why would be revealed in the course of the consultations about the merits of various options and proposals. There's no special virtue in any one number. Nor is a cheap bad government a better option than a pricier good one. But authoritarian dictatorship is always bad ,and there's no such thing as a truly benevolent despot. Even if the despot's scheme is thoughtful, balanced and appropriate — which should make it an easy and popular sell to the majority — governing by undemocratic diktat is moire unhealthy for our society than any so-called improvements to the system. Name one autocracy that's lasted as long as the clumsy, argumentative, dysfunctional democracies we live in.
But if all you want is a straw poll: If the PS were defending the 47 seat Council we now have by law, against a new proposal I thought worse, of course I'd align with them. I have little respect for anyone stupid enough to decide such stuff by party labels.
52% of Toronto is against cutting city council size and 36% support it.
Ford does not have a mandate to screw over the city during an election.
Ford does not have a mandate to screw over the city during an election.
https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/goldstein-ford-is-fighting-the-court-party
The Charter — ironically enough created by politicians — has enormously increased the power of our judiciary not only to judge laws passed by Parliament and legislatures, but to remake them in their own image, as well as use the Charter inappropriately to strike down laws they disagree with.
This transformation of our courts has been aided and abetted by a broad coalition of special interest groups, many government-funded, university academics, particularly in the law schools, human rights commissions, trade unions and media, all sympathetic to the expansion of judicial power to remake society in ways they could not achieve through the ballot box.
Political science professor Ted Morton of the University of Calgary, a former MLA and cabinet minister in Alberta’s Conservative government from 2004 to 2012, has described them, collectively, as the “Court Party,” an informal but powerful alliance of like-minded interests, who support the “judicialization of politics,” including lobbying governments to appoint activist judges from the ranks of the Court Party.
The Court Party has been shouting the loudest about what Ford has done, describing it as an attack on democracy.
This even though the notwithstanding clause was included in the Charter at the behest of the provinces for the very reason Ford is now citing, as a check against judicial power inappropriately interfering with the ability of legislatures to make laws, and without which the Charter would not have been approved.
Bizarrely, some of the criticism has come from the same politicians who agreed to the inclusion of the notwithstanding clause in the Charter, which Ford is using precisely as the Charter describes in Section 33.
This is not, as Morton wrote in a superb National Post column on Friday, because they particularly care about the size of Toronto council.
Rather, “their real fear is that Ford’s use of the notwithstanding power will set a precedent that legitimizes its use by other governments. If the government of Ontario can use the (until now rarely used) notwithstanding power to defend policies it deems important, why can’t Alberta or Nova Scotia? The stigma of being an outlier will be removed.”
“The political left in Canada has been very successful in using the courts to win policy battles that they can’t win in fair and free elections. The list of policies that have been dictated by judge-made law is long: abortion, same-sex marriage, physician-assisted suicide, Aboriginal rights, immigration and refugee determination, judicial salaries, Senate-reform, prostitution, collective bargaining. But whatever is next on their policy shopping list could now be in jeopardy.”
I also recommend a 1992 paper Morton wrote for the Osgoode Hall Law Journal, “The Charter Revolution & the Court Party,” based on themes later elaborated in his 2000 book of the same name, co-edited with Rainer Knopff.
As Morton explained a decade after the Charter was approved:
“The adoption of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982 has transformed both the practice and theory of Canadian politics. It has replaced a century-old tradition of parliamentary supremacy with a new regime of constitutional supremacy that verges on judicial supremacy. Judges have abandoned the deference and self-restraint that characterized their pre-Charter jurisprudence and become active players in the political process.
“Encouraged by the judiciary’s about face, interest groups — many funded by the very governments whose laws they are challenging — have increasingly turned to the courts to advance their policy objectives. The Charter has made the court room a new arena for the pursuit of politics.”
That’s the reason Parliament and provincial legislatures are today constantly challenged in the courts by members of the Court Party, seeking rulings by sympathetic, activist judges inappropriately using the Charter to interpret or strike down laws they disagree with.
Indeed, even many critics of Ford’s government agree that’s what happened to his Progressive Conservative government’s bill to downsize city council from 47 members plus the mayor, to 22 members.
I believe Ford should have run publicly in June’s Ontario election on downsizing Toronto council in 2022, not announced it after the fact in the middle of the 2018 municipal election campaign.
But I also believe judges should not twist the Charter into pretzels to justify rulings which inappropriately interfere with the legitimate powers of the legislature.
The court took issue with Ford trying to change the election terms in the middle of the election.
That's not twisting the charter.
Judge was a activist judge and did not followed the law ! It clearly says provincial goverment have jurdiction on municipal.
Read the charter !! I will bet you Ontario Doug Ford will win the appeal!
I have no faith in the court system right up to the SCC. Trudeau also has no faith in the courts as well. That is why he settled the Khadr case out of court rather than risk a wacko judge awarding him (Khadr) $40 million. Also, Trudeau, as we are all victims of the ridiculous Trans Mountain court case.
Why would anyone but a braindead bully with an axe to grind force councillors to represent 3x as many constituents as the other Ontario cities? On what planet does that make sense? And how is cutting the council in half gonna build subways and housing "for the people". Get ready for 4 years of Trumpian level madness right here in Ontariario!Who is Christine Elliot. I kept hearing the name but got no idea who she is. Is she John Tory's sister. John Tory is kind of useless.
Ford and Horwath are not the same. One is a reactionary, other a dogmatic leftist. At least his Ford-ness has some experience running an organization connected with the real world. Do we want to hear about unions grievances indefinitely and identity politics victimhood hysterics forever and ever?
If the Liberal or NDP party cut Toronto City Hall in half, that would be absolutely wonderful. Too bad they did not. Wynne could have won the election if she did that.
izza:
Ford is taking a dangerous risk by taking a baseball bat to his largest tax base. Harris's "put Toronto in its place" policy condemned the PC to 15 years in opposition.
And the city's landscape has changed since 1997. Back then the 905 was gaining in population, now the reverse is true. Maybe Kinga should not have cut Dougie down to three times a month. Her Christmas Party was great political theater, Patrick Brown had no idea that the knives were out. Kinga and Dougie were close.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InLFRG5b8aw&t=72s
And the city's landscape has changed since 1997. Back then the 905 was gaining in population, now the reverse is true. Maybe Kinga should not have cut Dougie down to three times a month. Her Christmas Party was great political theater, Patrick Brown had no idea that the knives were out. Kinga and Dougie were close.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InLFRG5b8aw&t=72s
Ted Morton and his “court party” bullshit is laughable. Morton is as biased as they come - was part of a group who advocated for Alberta to separate - so of course he doesn’t respect the Charter, he doesn’t even value Canada. He is part of the “Calgary School” of thought which brought you Thom Flanagan and Stephen Harper. All three would sell out the country to the US in a heartbeat.
The biased judiciary always comes out when they are ruled against. Here is the harsh truth: Harper governed for 10 years, and during those ten years he was able to successfully stack our Supreme Court with his nominees with only Marc Nadon turned down (because Harper tried to appoint him as a Québec appointee, but Nadon was not a sitting judge in Québec, nor even a member of the Québec Bar). Currently 6 of our SC judges were appointed by Harper.
This of course was a wet dream for Harper and the clueless idiots who idolized him. Now he could pass any legislation he wanted because the “lefty” biased majority in the SC was gone. Guess what? When Harper was challenged on some of his lame assed, lazy legislation the SC ruled against him. Even his own appointees ruled against the PM who appointed them. Why? Because Canada has a proud tradition of judicial independence (something Harper and like minded idiots never appreciate).
Anybody who says “Court Party” in seriousness, is just a dope or a sucker. Rather than denigrate the courts, or the party that challenges faulty legislation, the idiots should lobby their own parties to spend another few minutes drafting legislation that is lawful. But I suspect they’re all too incompetent.
The biased judiciary always comes out when they are ruled against. Here is the harsh truth: Harper governed for 10 years, and during those ten years he was able to successfully stack our Supreme Court with his nominees with only Marc Nadon turned down (because Harper tried to appoint him as a Québec appointee, but Nadon was not a sitting judge in Québec, nor even a member of the Québec Bar). Currently 6 of our SC judges were appointed by Harper.
This of course was a wet dream for Harper and the clueless idiots who idolized him. Now he could pass any legislation he wanted because the “lefty” biased majority in the SC was gone. Guess what? When Harper was challenged on some of his lame assed, lazy legislation the SC ruled against him. Even his own appointees ruled against the PM who appointed them. Why? Because Canada has a proud tradition of judicial independence (something Harper and like minded idiots never appreciate).
Anybody who says “Court Party” in seriousness, is just a dope or a sucker. Rather than denigrate the courts, or the party that challenges faulty legislation, the idiots should lobby their own parties to spend another few minutes drafting legislation that is lawful. But I suspect they’re all too incompetent.
That Clause got us the Charter. But if it's used for every mundane whim of the government of the day — to expropriate your property for the MPPs' Rehab Clinic, say — what value is left in those Rights of ours? We accepted the Notwithstanding Escape Hatch on the understanding it wouldn't be just another entrance (as we were assured by the Premiers who refused to sign on without it).
It was meant as the nuclear option, never to be used but always there, to make those frightened by Rights feel secure that they had recourse, and remind the unreasonable that Rights always have limits. If it can be so easily invoked for a purpose so far removed from the properly formulated serious plans for the good of the whole Province, then indeed it will be a White Elephant: A gift that beggars and destroys those who thought they wanted it.
The American Declaration of Independence puts it very concisely: These truths are self-evident, that all are created equal, endowed with unalienable rights. 'Unalienable' meaning that those rights cannot be taken from us; they always exist as long as we people exist.
Unless a hand-gesture is all you're discussing, what's 'right' is eternal, it never alters. Of course that version of Right makes things difficult for those who rule. Not only do those Rights get in the way of what they want to do, but beyond that, the powerless people who they govern expect their rulers to protect, and even to advance those Rights, in return for accepting their rule. So of course rulers resist the whole concept of Rights. It's no surprise the first to spell out such stuff were rebels in America, France and elsewhere. But it still surprises many who think of power that Rights and Rule can actually co-exist. People have always figured out ways to have their cake and eat it too.
Our Notwithstanding Clause was our kick at that can: Trudeau père wanted to spell out the rights our British heritage left unspecified and unenforceable except by common-law court decisions. He just couldn't convince enough Premiers that wouldn't straitjacket them when they needed to act. He'd already covered national emergencies (like needing the War Measures Act) and public order (like outlawing false alarms in crowded theatres) with Section 1. However, with their greater responsibility for what folks do day-to-day locally, some Provinces still couldn't accept that a person's unalienable Rights might interfere. Until some bight spark suggested writing in the escape hatch we're discussing, Section 33, so they could go back to their rooms and get some sleep.
Ford's Tories won't be in power forever. He's teaching the next government how to trample his rights and undo his work with an extra couple of keystrokes.
Let me explain to you how stupid you are.
Larue suggested a hypothetical. I responded to it. And you teed off on me for discussing a hypothetical. I was just responding to your buddy's post. Read this stuff before you write. You're making a fool of yourself.
Canada definitely would not have a Charter without the Notwithstanding clause. It’s one of these laws that exists but depended upon the quaint notion of responsible use. Sask has used it, but arguably you could say that they used it as it was intended to be used. Québec abused it during their separatist Govt because they didn’t recognize the Charter. Now Ford is abusing it. Why? Because he can. That’s the problem when quaint notions about responsible use are the only thing separating us from having rights and having no rights. And yes - Ford is just making it easier to abuse the clause in the future because he has paved the way for future abuses. Note to Ford fans: this means the clause may very well be used in the future for a purpose you do not approve. Remember your Ford excuses when that happens.
Then that will be the law. His people never managed to make your argument in the first Court though, and now he's given up on it. If he gets Bill31 signed, watch him drop his appeal like hot potato. There's every reason to think the Appeal Court would find the original Bill as despicable as the lower Court judge.
'L'étât c'est Moi', was always his style anyway.
A) the government is not trampling any rights, just one's judges controversial decision.
B) the government feels that it's an important case. Elections have consequences. End of the story.
