Ontario Premier Doug Ford attends a news conference at the Michener Institute of Education in Toronto on Dec. 1.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he won’t use the Constitution’s notwithstanding clause to revive his wage-cap legislation, which a court struck down this week – a decision his government has nonetheless vowed to appeal.
The government’s Bill 124, which capped public-sector compensation increases at 1 per cent for a three-year period, was ruled unconstitutional by an Ontario Superior Court judge for violating collective bargaining rights considered part of the guarantee to free association in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Mr. Ford’s government says it will appeal the ruling to the Ontario Court of Appeal, where the province is expected to seek a stay allowing its legislation to remain in place until the case is heard. A second trial in Ontario Superior Court is still to come on what costs the government will face. The province’s independent Financial Accountability Office (FAO) has estimated that Ontario’s bill for pay hikes denied by the legislation since 2019 could come to $8.4-billion.
The Premier told reporters his commitment not to use the Charter’s override clause isn’t a result of the massive labour protests that greeted his attempt last month to use the clause to pre-emptively block a legal strike by education workers – a move he withdrew after the union walked out any way. But Mr. Ford appeared to acknowledge the move was an error.
“I think I proved to the people of Ontario in four years, if I feel something is going the wrong way or I’ve made a judgment call, I go out there, I apologize, I tell them what we’re going to do to correct it, and move forward,” he told reporters on Thursday.
Use of the notwithstanding clause as a political tool becoming more common
Mr. Ford is the first Ontario premier to use the notwithstanding clause, which allows governments to suspend many Charter rights, and he has used it or threatened to use it three times since being elected in 2018.
He called the ruling by Justice Markus Koehnen “interesting, to say the least” but said he had faith the government could win an appeal, noting courts have ruled differently on other laws limiting public-sector wages in the past.
The government’s lawyers leaned on a ruling last year by the Manitoba Court of Appeal that upheld similar wage-hike limits imposed by that province. But Justice Koehnen’s decision says the cases are different and that Ontario’s law does “substantially interfere with the process of collective bargaining.” He also said other previous rulings upholding wage-cap legislation hinged on governments showing they were in a fiscal crisis, something Ontario was not facing when it passed Bill 124 in 2019.
It was unclear what any move by Mr. Ford to use the notwithstanding clause to bring in a new version of Bill 124 would achieve. Most of the province’s unions are now past their three-year “moderation period” under the law. However, according to FAO, as of the end of September, 30 per cent of affected public-sector employees still had to negotiate deals under the law’s temporary compensation restrictions, including 100,000 hospital workers. And the law also included a permanent clause that blocked workers from seeking backpay for wages lost under their three-year “moderation period” in future talks.
Unions have blamed Bill 124 and the stresses of the pandemic for what they call a “mass exodus” of nurses from the strained health care system.
Speaking alongside the Premier on Thursday at an event at the Michener Institute, a medical education institution that is part of the University Health Network, Health Minister Sylvia Jones said the province has more nurses this year than last year – adding 14,000 so far in 2022 – and has made moves to accredit more foreign-trained nurses.
Kevin Smith, president and CEO of University Health Network, told reporters he had not seen a “mass exodus.” But he said his hospitals would normally have 200 vacancies for nurses and now have about double that. And many nurses in high-stress jobs, such as those in the intensive care unit, have been seeking less stressful work, he said.
The Premier and his Health Minister announced Thursday that Ontario was spending $4.6-million at the Michener Institute, and $9.4-million at several colleges, to train nurses to work in critical care, with 600 more nurses expected to have completed their courses by the spring. Ms. Jones also said Ontario would continue to provide free rapid COVID-19 tests until June 30. The program was set to expire at the end of the year.
Reporters at the event asked Mr. Ford about his contentious plans to allow development on parts of the province’s protected Greenbelt, while adding more land to it elsewhere. The Premier said neither he nor any of his intermediaries tipped off any developers about the plans. A Globe and Mail investigation showed that two plots of the land being removed from Greenbelt protection had recently changed hands for millions of dollars.
Mr. Ford also defended his legislation to slash the development charges municipalities levy on builders, with the discounts applying to affordable housing and rental projects. Municipalities have warned the plan would leave them short billions for infrastructure. This week, the government sent letters to Toronto Mayor John Tory and other municipal leaders saying it would audit their use of development charges and assist if municipalities are short of cash. Mr. Ford said his government planned to audit other cities, not just Toronto.