Breaking: Justice Belobaba finds #bill5 breaches s.2(b) of the Charter, and has not been justified under s.1. Declared of no force and effect effective immediately. October 22nd election will proceed as scheduled but with 47 wards, not 25. "The enactment of provincial legislation radically changing the number and size of a city’s electoral districts in the middle of the city’s election is without parallel in Canadian history.... changing the rules in the middle of the game is profoundly unfair." (paras 6-7).

Bill 5, the so-called "Better Local Government Act, 2018" bit.ly/2vimodC, introduced in the Ontario legislature today, is an outrageous attack on democracy at the municipal level. By disrupting democratic institutions and electoral boundaries with no consultation in the middle of the 2018 election process for Toronto City Council, Bill 5 shows contempt for democracy as a fundamental principle of the Canadian constitution.

Since we’ve heard a lot of misinformed or misleading commentary about the Trans Mountain Expansion Project (TMEP) this week, it seems it might be helpful to clarify the situation regarding the constitutional division of legislative powers in relation to interprovincial pipelines. Interprovincial pipelines fall within federal legislative jurisdiction pursuant to s.92(10(a) of the Constitution Act, 1867 (transportation or communication “works and undertakings connecting the province with any other or others of the provinces”).