Premier Doug Ford is holding a weekend House session to try to save the Toronto council cut legislation
(The Star Food)

Rookie Premier Doug Ford is scrambling to salvage the Progressive Conservative government’s legislation slashing the size of Toronto council.With the Oct. 22 city election in peril, Ford has taken the rare step of holding a weekend session of the legislature in order to have enough hours of debate so Bill 31 can pass.But it may be moot if Attorney General Caroline Mulroney is successful at the Court of Appeal on Tuesday and wins a stay.A stay would quash Superior Court Justice Edward Belobaba’s ruling that the legislation’s previous version, Bill 5, was unconstitutional.It would render Bill 31 unnecessary and nullify the need for Ford to invoke the Charter’s notwithstanding clause for the first time in Ontario history because Bill 5, which cuts the number of Toronto councillors from 47 to 25, could become law.Against this backdrop of legal uncertainty, Government House Leader Todd Smith told CBC Radio’s Matt Galloway on Friday that the Tories are “absolutely not� panicking that they won’t have enough time to ram through the legislation before the municipal vote.Belobaba’s ruling blindsided the government, leading Ford to unleash the Charter’s notwithstanding clause, which allows the government to overrule the courts in order to proceed with its legislative agenda.Read more:Toronto city council votes to challenge province’s ward cuts in courtProtesters say Doug Ford is violating their rights ‘notwiththinking’Province appeals judge’s ruling on Toronto council cutToronto City clerk Ulli Watkiss threw the premier’s office into a tailspin Thursday with a warning that a fair election was “becoming virtually impossible to carry out.�Court filings made Friday by Watkiss — in an unprecedented move after she hired her own outside lawyer from Stikeman Elliott LLP — say that in order to print a planned 2.6 million ballots on time, the printers will need to work ...