Bill allows the Ontario mayors for the cities of Toronto and Ottawa to make decisions without majority approval, among other things has been passed.
As the culmination of a flurry of sharply criticised housing-related actions, Ontario has enacted legislation that permits Toronto and Ottawa to impose specific regulations even if a minority of councillors are in favour.
The most recent measure strengthens the so-called strong mayor powers that the government granted to Toronto and Ottawa earlier this year and permits the province to name the regional chairmen in Niagara, Peel, and York.
The initial set of powers gave the leaders the authority to hire and fire department heads as well as reject council actions that they believed would prevent the construction of additional dwellings. With the help of one-third of council members, they may now propose housing-related rules and get them approved.
The proposal is a follow-up to a previous housing law that enraged local governments by reducing the costs developers must pay to construct infrastructure for new dwellings and outraged environmentalists by allegedly weakening the power of conservation agencies.
In order to build 50,000 dwellings, the government has also suggested taking land out of 15 separate protected Greenbelt zones while adding acres elsewhere.
Reaction of the Bill on Toronto Council
While Mark Sutcliffe, the mayor of Ottawa, has stated he is not interested in utilising the powers, Toronto Mayor John Tory has stated he will use them in a prudent and constrained manner.
Tory said on Tuesday that he “continues to work closely with the Council to get things done” and that he “remains determined to establish council agreement on issues.”
15 council members sought the province to stop the bill’s passage because they felt they hadn’t been consulted and that any changes to the way the city is run should be made by the council and the citizens.
Prior to the powers being extended to other cities next year, Premier Doug Ford said that Toronto and Ottawa were serving as a “test region.”
Reaction of the Opposition on the Bill
The recently passed law, according to interim Ontario NDP leader Peter Tabuns, is a “assault on democracy” and will not help Ontario’s housing issue.
“Ontarians love democracy, and citizens are understandably concerned about Doug Ford’s most recent scheme to usurp authority from locally elected officials through the recently enacted Bill 39.
“This administration would commit to building more affordable houses for Ontarians, enacting stricter rent control laws, constructing the missing middle homes in existing neighbourhoods, and cracking down on speculation if it really intended to tackle the housing issue,” said one critic.