The Ontario government will appeal a Superior Court decision that struck down a law cutting the number of Toronto city councillors weeks before an election, Premier Doug Ford told reporters Monday. He also said legislature would come back early to pass a new version of the bill to include a little-used charter clause that allows provincial governments to overrule justices.

"He's the judge. I'm the premier," Ford said.

MPPs will come back to work Wednesday instead of on Sept. 24 as planned. Ford said lawyers of all political stripes agreed that the Better Local Governments Act, or Bill 5, was constitutional.

He's the judge. I'm the premier.Doug Ford

"We vetted this upside down, sideways, backwards," the premier said. "When we heard this decision, do you know how many people fell out of their chairs?"

Justice Edward Belobaba ruled that the law was unconstitutional because a municipal election was already underway.

Court calls cuts undemocratic

The move "cannot be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society," Justice Edward Belobaba said in his decision.

"The matter before me is unprecedented," Belobaba wrote. "The Province has clearly crossed the line."

Cutting council is within the province's rights, but the legislation Ontario used has two "constitutional deficiencies," Belobaba ruled. The bill breaches the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in two ways:

it violates candidates' right to freedom of expression because it was introduced in the middle of an ongoing campaign

it violates voters' right to effective representation because it doubles the population of city wards from an average of 61,000 to 111,000.

'Crickets'

One line in the justice's decision drew a lot of attention online.

Belobaba asked rhetorically why the province changed the size of all wards when it said it was concerned about the size of six specific wards.

"Why impose a decision ... that is far worse, in terms of achieving effective representation, than the original problem? ... Why do so in the middle of the City's election?" he wrote. "Crickets."