Ford government brings back bills to tackle encampments, badly-behaved councillors
Global News
On Wednesday and Thursday, recently appointed Housing Minister Rob Flack reintroduced legislation his predecessor, Paul Calandra, had tabled in December.
The Ford government has reintroduced two proposed laws to tackle homelessness encampments and bring in tougher penalties for city councillors, both of which were scrapped when the legislature was dissolved for February’s snap election.
On Wednesday and Thursday, recently-appointed Housing Minister Rob Flack reintroduced legislation his predecessor, Paul Calandra, had tabled in December.
The first bill to be reintroduced was a proposed law to dismantle homeless encampments, enhance police powers over public drug use and toughen trespass rules.
As part of the proposed law, Ontario allocated tens of millions of dollars to municipalities to spend on additional shelter capacity to clear encampments. Sending that money coincided with the law but was not reliant on it being passed.
On Thursday, Flack also reintroduced a long-awaited and much-debated law to create a stricter framework for municipal politicians who have been found to break the rules.
The proposed law would allow for councillors to be removed from office and banned from running again if they were found guilty of serious offences by the integrity commissioner. For that to happen, the provincial integrity commissioner would need to rubber stamp the recommendation, as would all members of council, apart from the member set to be removed.
If the bill passes under Flack, it will end a years-long process of writing and rewriting a municipal conduct law.
As Global News previously reported, former housing minister Steve Clark was days away from tabling a bill on municipal conduct before it was removed and shelved completely. It took almost three years for a new — and fairly different — bill to be drawn up.
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