Some 400 demonstrators chanted, clapped and held signs with messages like “Stop Doug the thug” and “Our city! We decide!” outside city hall Wednesday to protest Premier Doug Ford’s efforts to revive a bill slashing Toronto city council nearly in half.
For more than two hours, they chanted slogans like “The people — united — will never be defeated” and “Hey hey, ho ho, Doug Ford has got to go” and cheered on a stream of NDP and Liberal speakers.

Hundreds of people attend a rally at Nathan Phillips Square on Wednesday to protest the Ford government's use of the notwithstanding clause to slash the size of Toronto’s city council. (Rick Madonik / Toronto Star)

“It’s clearly his attempt to get his revenge on councillors that he considers his enemies,” said Ruth Gillings, 71, a retired University of Toronto manager .
Demonstrators were incensed by Ford’s use of the “notwithstanding” clause to override a court decision which had found his plan to cut city council during an election campaign violated the Charter right of freedom of expression.
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Ford’s legislation to cut Toronto council passes first reading as protests rock the Ontario legislature
Opinion | Martin Regg Cohn: How Doug Ford trumped Caroline Mulroney — and all of us — on basic rights
Former premier Bill Davis speaks out against Doug Ford’s use of the ‘notwithstanding’ clause
Gillings said the power of judges to have the final say in legal disputes is worth respecting. “They’re not elected because if there were elected, they couldn’t be impartial,” she said.
Some demonstrators held signs calling on Ford to respect the court decision, saying, “Notwiththinking” and “Courts protect against abuse of power.”

Several demonstrators called on Attorney General Caroline Mulroney to stand up for the courts, and noted that her father, former prime minister Brian Mulroney, spoke out this week against Ford’s use of the notwithstanding clause to override the court decision.
“Listen to your father! He is right!” read one sign. “Get on it Caroline,” another sign said.

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Retired board of health worker Lee Zaslofsky, 74, was one of many protestors who thought Mulroney should have stood up to Ford and defended the court decision.
“I’m opposed to what Doug Ford is doing,” Zaslofsky said. “I think it’s the equivalent of a proclamation of dictatorship.”
Waving a Canadian flag and chanting loudly was Conrad Oliver, 19, a University of Toronto political science student.
“I am surprised it has come to this,” Oliver said.
Musician Barry Peters, 61, said he thinks Ford is using his powers as premier to settle old beefs from his days on Toronto city council.
“I think Doug Ford is a disgrace to this province,” Peters said. “He’s a bully … It’s nothing but a personal vendetta.“
Zaslofsky said he suspects Ford is using Toronto to send a message to other communities not to oppose him.
“I think Doug Ford is trying to make a point,” Zaslofsky said. “He’s the boss. You do what he says or he crushes you. The other cities will look at this and say, ‘Oh boy, he stops at nothing.’”
Mary-Ann Leonowicz, 50, said Ford is jeopardizing next month’s Toronto city election.
“I feel like he’s attacking Toronto,” she said, arguing that Toronto’s city council needs to grow, not contract.
“This city is growing,” she said. “It’s not dying.
Joan McDonald, 76, said that Ford is acting as if the laws don’t matter to him.
“He’s doing exactly what I knew that he would do, “ she said. “He’s just feels that he’s above the law.”
Her husband Barrett McDonald, 80, agreed, saying that the courts must be defended.
“Once the courts start getting pushed around, we’re in very big trouble as a democracy.”
Peter Edwards is a Toronto-based reporter primarily covering crime. Follow him on Twitter: @PeterEdwards3

By Peter EdwardsStaff Reporter

Wed., Sept. 12, 2018

‘You can’t let them get away with these dirty deeds’

By Samantha BeattieStaff Reporter

Thu., Sept. 13, 2018

Ester Reiter lived through discrimination as a Jew in Cold War America, marched to protest the Vietnam War with two babies in tow, and visited a mass grave in a southern Poland forest where her grandparents, aunts and uncles were likely murdered in the Holocaust.
When she woke up on Wednesday morning, the 77-year-old didn’t hesitate to stand up for what she says is another great injustice — the Ontario government passing legislation that a judge ruled violates the Constitution.

“I am 77-and-a-half years old and I hate the destruction of democracy,” Ester Reiter yelled from the public gallery at the Ontario Legislature on Wednesday as opposition MPPs below clapped in support. (Richard Lautens / Toronto Star)

Ester Reiter, shown at her Toronto home on Thursday, a day after she was ejected from the public gallery at the Ontario Legislature for protesting the Ford government’s proposed cuts to Toronto city council. (Andrew Francis Wallace / Toronto Star)

She cancelled her recorder quartet practice and made her way to Queen’s Park.
“You can’t let them get away with these dirty deeds without witnessing the thing,” said Reiter of the Progressive Conservative government invoking the “notwithstanding” clause to ram through cuts to Toronto city council in the middle of a municipal election campaign. “This is outrageous. It’s like shredding everything I care about.”
Within minutes of grabbing a spot in the legislature and watching others make noise as question period began, Reiter and the rest of the audience were told to leave. She refused, and made it known why.

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“I am 77-and-a-half years old and I hate the destruction of democracy,” Reiter yelled from the balcony as opposition MPPs below clapped in support.
Two security guards intervened and escorting Reiter out of Queen’s Park. She later told the Star the only reason she didn’t try to stay longer was not out of fear of being criminally charged, but because she was concerned that if her wrists were handcuffed behind her back it would injure her shoulder.
“Why do I care about having a record?” said Reiter, a retired professor of women’s studies at York University.
She wasn’t arrested or charged, nor were two other protesters who were also escorted out, according to Toronto police.
The last time Reiter was at Queen’s Park was in 1996, when she went to protest the Progressive Conservative government of then-premier Mike Harris. She was kicked out of the legislature that day, too.

“How I honour my identity as a Jew is to get my ass out and protect everybody, to protect the rights and freedoms of everybody and really try to struggle against any injustice,” she said.
Reiter’s Brooklyn accent hints at her past. Her parents immigrated to New York City from Eastern Europe in the 1920s. When Reiter was on born Jan. 13, 1941, her mother and father were struggling to find out what had happened to their own parents, brothers and sisters, who were still overseas during the Second World War. They would later discover that almost the entire family was murdered in the Holocaust.

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“I didn’t live through that hell, but I inherited my parents’ grief and the understanding you don’t fight (injustice) for yourself. You fight it for everybody,” Reiter said. She still remembers her mother mourning her little sister, who had been trying to escape to the United States but never made it.
Reiter would eventually move to Winnipeg with her two boys in 1968, and then later to Toronto to get her PhD in sociology at the University of Toronto, driven to make a difference.
“I ask myself, what can I do to make sure what happened to my people doesn’t happen to other people — to make sure my voice is there saying, ‘No, no, no, it isn’t right?’ ”
Samantha Beattie is a city hall reporter based in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: @samantha_kb