The Superior Court of Justice of Ontario [official website] ruled [judgment, PDF] Monday that the Better Local Government Act, 2018 [text], which decreased the number of city wards and councilors in Toronto from 47 to 25, was unconstitutional.

The law was enacted on August 14 and took effect immediately. The election period for the city had begun on May 1, and the election is to take place on October 22. The law would increase the population of each city ward from an average of 61,000 people to an average of 111,000 people.

The court found that the law was unconstitutional in two ways. First, it found that because the law took effect in the middle of an election, it violated the municipal candidate’s freedom of expression. This was because the law “substantially interfered with the candidate’s ability to effectively communicate his or her political message to relevant voters.” Because the law took effect in the middle of the election, candidates had to reorganize their campaigns and spent significant amounts of time simply addressing the changes instead of political issues.

The court also found that the increase in population of the city wards violated the municipal voters’ freedom of expression because it violates the right to effective representation. The court found that the increase in the size of the city wards would result in councilors being unable to “respond in a timely fashion to the ‘grievances and concerns’ of their constituents.”

The bill was originally justified as being necessary to improve efficiency and lower costs. The court found that these reasons were not sufficiently pressing to require that the law take effect in the middle of an election. It was ruled that the current election shall take place with the current 47 City wards.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced that he will be invoking [Global News report] the notwithstanding clause of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to supersede the court’s decision. The clause has never been used in Ontario.