The Ford government's speed camera bill was rushed into legislation with public input curtailed.Jon Blacker/The Canadian Press
People who use parking garages may be familiar with those signs that absolve the company of damage to your vehicle – no matter how caused. There’s a similar vibe at Ontario’s legislature.
Since taking office, Premier Doug Ford’s government has habitually added clauses to bills that seek to ward off legal fallout for the effects of the legislation it is passing. In some cases, this protects the government if someone gets hurt. In other cases, it ensures that contracts can be broken without penalty.
It’s not exactly writing yourself a get-out-of-jail-free card, but it’s pretty close. It’s also a strange look for a government that tries to portray itself as pro-business. In fact, this government has erected large “open for business” signs around the province.
Maybe those signs need a bit of fine print: rules and contracts may be changed in the government’s favour.
Self-protective legislative clauses were part of the Greenbelt saga, when Mr. Ford sought to develop part of a protected area near Toronto before backing down in the face of public outrage. At the time, the Tory government used legislation to erase its own legal settlement with a developer, reached only the previous year. It also shielded itself from court awards, even if the government or its employees acted in bad faith, abusing or overstepping their powers.
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It happened again last month, when the government ordered cities to stop using speed cameras and negated any penalties for municipalities breaking contracts with camera providers. And, in an egregious example last year, the government passed a bill to remove bicycle lanes and specified that it could not be held responsible for any deaths or injuries that happened as a result.
Legal experts say that governments have the legislative authority to do this.
However, these clauses may not be a silver bullet. When New Brunswick terminated a nursing contract in the wake of a Globe and Mail investigation, included in the legislation was an attempt to stop the company coming after the province. But Health Minister John Dornan admitted that he did not know how effective this would be.
“We want to mitigate the opportunity to be sued for cost,” he said in the spring, adding: “Does that absolutely prevent us from being sued at some point in time? I’m not sure.”
Only days later, the company filed the first of four legal actions against a government regional health authority.
Such protective clauses have also been employed in other provinces. A spokesman in British Columbia’s Ministry of the Attorney General pointed to bills in 2004 and 2022 that had included this sort of clause, however these were valid only if the government had acted in good faith. He was unable to say how often such clauses were used.
A principle of democracy is that one government can’t be bound by the decisions of its predecessors. That’s important, because otherwise the will of the people to change course could be thwarted. But it’s also important that the terms of contracts signed by one government be honoured by its successors, which means that penalties may be due if any such contracts are cancelled.
What’s noteworthy in the case of the speed cameras is that the Ford government was unwinding its own actions. It was this government that passed legislation in 2019 that allowed municipalities to install speed cameras. Dozens of cities did so in school zones and other high-risk areas and saw substantial decreases in speeding. However, this year Mr. Ford began to criticize the cameras as an illegitimate cash-grab and moved to ban them.
He ignores that choosing to break the speed limit is just that, a choice. It’s ironic that the government would prioritize law-breaking drivers even as it does an end run around possible legal fallout from its own actions.
It’s also worth noting that the speed camera bill was rushed into legislation, with public input curtailed. Nothing says respect for democracy and confidence in the strength of one’s ideas quite like ramming a bill through the legislature.
Contract law may not be the sexiest topic, but it’s the foundation of the free-market system. Without knowing that agreements will be respected, people and businesses won’t have the confidence to sign deals. The system can’t function if governments arbitrarily change the rules from one day to the next.