Toronto will take province to court over Ford’s plan to slash size of city council
Toronto Star speaks to Heather Ann McConnell about Bill 5 challenge
The Toronto Star is covering the various legal challenges to Bill 5, the so-called Better Local Government Act, which will slash the number of Toronto wards and councillors in the middle of the ongoing election.
Among others, the Star spoke to Heather Ann McConnell about the legal challenge Goldblatt Partners has brought on behalf of a candidate, an elector and Women Win TO:
Law firm Goldblatt Partners announced Monday it will represent three applicants: candidate Chris Moise, a gay Black man who was running downtown in a ward that included the Gay Village; elector Ish Aderonmu; and Prabha Khosla, as a representative of the organization Women Win TO, which trains and supports women looking to run for municipal office.
They plan to make constitutional arguments and charge that the legislation violates equality rights in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, saying in a court application filed Monday that the law has an “adverse impact on women and racialized and LGBT candidates.”
Heather Ann McConnell, a partner at Goldblatt and the daughter of longtime city councillor Pam McConnell, who died last year, said it’s important for the city to join the court challenge and that the question “goes to our very sense of democracy in the city, as well as in the province and in the country.”