After two afternoons of intense, sometimes startlingly angry debate, Toronto city councillors have voted to at least try to push back against an Ontario government move to slash their ranks by nearly half.
Councillors will reconvene for a special meeting August 20th to get an opinion from the city solicitor about whether Toronto has a legal leg to stand on for a court challenge of provincial legislation.
Council also voted to request that the provincial government conduct a referendum on the number of wards and their boundaries before proceeding with legislation.
The proposal from the Progressive Conservatives would reduce the number of council seats up for grabs in this October's election from a planned 47 to 25.
Premier Doug Ford introduced the legislation Monday, stating that the plan would streamline the decision-making process and save Toronto taxpayers $25 million in councillor and staff salaries.
Councillors also declared their opposition to the plan in a 24-17 vote.
"Today, city council sent a strong message to Queen's Park that it opposes the process around the change to Toronto's ward boundaries," Mayor John Tory said in a news release.
City council approved my call for the province to hold a binding referendum before proceeding with any changes to the Toronto ward boundaries," Tory said.
"Change of this magnitude should always happen with a degree of consultation that allows the public to be heard and I believe a referendum will ensure that opportunity."
Speaking at Queen's Park Monday, Premier Ford said he campaigned on reducing the size and cost of government so this move should come as no surprise.
"I talked to tens of thousands of people across this province, I talked to thousands of people in Toronto, and every single person I spoke to in Toronto said that city hall is dysfunctional," Ford said.
"We don't believe in bigger government. We don't believe in more politicians or more bureaucracy. We're going to make sure the City of Toronto finally runs more efficiently."
He also highlighted other potential benefits to reducing the number of council seats.
"I can assure you that when we have 25 councillors, it's going to be 500,000 less sheets of paper. I'm protecting the environment. I'm protecting trees," he said.
Municipal staff have suggested they could not make all the necessary changes in time for the Oct. 22 election, though Ontario's municipal affairs minister said he had reached out to them and is confident they can work out any "transitional issues."
Ford has faced criticism from the opposition parties, who argue he did not campaign on the issue or hold public consultations as he pledged to do on key policy changes.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath called Ford's approach "dictatorial".
"No matter how much he pretends that he wants to hear people's voices, by shutting them out of a decision around their own democratic institutions is absolutely wrong," she said. "He shouldn't be governing by edict sitting on his throne in Etobicoke. The bottom line is, he is an elected official in a democracy, and democratic processes require public debate."
The premier promised Monday afternoon to go knocking on doors in the Toronto area and as far as Timmins, Ont., over the next week to hear what people think of his proposal, though his office did not immediately confirm the plan.
The Liberals, who were ousted from government this spring, questioned the premier's decision to target only Toronto and three other regions.
With files from the Canadian Press and Siobhan Morris