Ford’s shady tactics to takeover Toronto City Hall continue.

Without consultation or warning, and in the middle of the election, he tabled a bill to slash city council in half— an autocratic-style power-play to make it easier for him to control City Hall. And just yesterday, in a move that some have never seen before in the history of Queen’s Park, he simply refused to answer questions about the bill.

And now, we’re hearing word that tomorrow he’s going to try and pull a fast one on all of us: shut down formal debate on the bill and refuse to send it to committee for review —in other words, curb the democratic process so he can ram his bill into law.

But Friend, we aren’t going to let him get away with this. We just got off a call with civil society, labour, and other Toronto-based groups. We think that if we can pack the public gallery at Queen’s Park tomorrow morning with more people than the building has ever seen, this show of people-powered opposition could make even Ford balk. 

But to make it work, we need you to make it huge.  Will you show up to pack the public gallery at Queen’s Park tomorrow? 
 

At Leadnow and Progress Toronto we are working to make showing up at the Queen’s Park gallery as easy for you as possible. We’ll have people to greet you at the doors, and once you sign up, we’ll send you everything you need to know. RSVP now.

What: Pack the Queen’s Park Gallery
When: Thursday August 2, 2018 at 9:45AM
Where: Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Queen’s Park, south entrance

Ford’s likely moving to call a motion tomorrow in the Legislature to curb fair democratic process (debate, consultation, review) on this bill, because if he wants to gut city council in time to control it over the next 4 years, he needs the bill passed before it gets too close to municipal election day and it becomes impossible to implement the changes. 

We don’t know when this exact deadline is, but we do know Ford has to move fast to see his plans through. And so do we. Stopping Ford tomorrow won’t stop this bill entirely, but it will slow him down, buy us more time, and bring us one step closer to victory.

Ford thinks he can just show up to work in the middle of summer, right before the long weekend when he thinks no-one’s paying attention, and quietly roll out a series of unfair tactics to scuttle democracy and get what he wants. He’s got another thing coming.

A powerful show of opposition, in person at the gallery tomorrow, could make him hesitate in front of hundreds of people watching and thwart his plan to subvert democracy. 
 

Our movement to stop Ford’s takeover of Toronto is growing everyday. Over 20,000 of us have already signed the petition. And yesterday, in only a few hours, together we sent over 5,000 emails to conservative MPPs. Let’s take our pressure to the next level by packing the gallery tomorrow at Queen’s Park to send Ford and his PCs a message they cannot ignore.

Will you help keep the pressure up? RSVP now: https://act.leadnow.ca/pack-the-gallery/