The City of Toronto Act is supposed to be a sort of city charter, defining the powers of the municipal government and how they work. It is still on the books, for now. Officially.

But it would appear obvious, after the past two months and especially the past week, that the act has been effectively replaced. Instead we get the City of Toronto Actor: Premier Doug Ford. He’s gonna say how it’s gonna be. Period.

That’s an obvious enough conclusion after his snap decision to rewrite the rules of city government and election law in the middle of a Toronto election campaign, then haul out the notwithstanding clause to enforce that decision after a judge ruled it unconstitutional.

It’s an obvious enough conclusion from his promise that he won’t be shy about using that power to set aside the Charter of Rights and Freedoms again — and his further comments making it clear he doesn’t believe in constitutional democracy as it exists in Canada, demonizing not just a judge but the entire role of judges in reviewing legislation as illegitimate.

It’s obvious from his rhetoric about the “downtown NDP councillors” and Mayor John Tory, and Ford’s clear focus not on provincial issues but on Toronto — so much so that, when NDP leader Andrea Horwath accused him during Question Period of being “obsessed with his enemies on Toronto council,” he responded, “We were elected on making sure we fix this city.”

This city, huh? Huh.

Ford announced he was running for mayor of Toronto four years ago, on Sept. 12, 2014. He lost in that campaign. But one term of council later, he’s done better: As premier of Ontario, he appears ready to see himself as essentially All Powerful Boss of Toronto. And at this point, nothing in law or politics seems likely to disabuse him of that notion.

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By now we’re past observing that his meddling with the size of council has thrown the election itself into chaos.

What’s coming into focus is just how much of the election debate we might otherwise have had — the one we might mostly still have — is now kind of irrelevant.

Not that the issues are irrelevant. Quite the opposite. People in this city cannot afford housing. We have more people trying to get into homeless shelters than we have beds for. People are being shot and killed by criminals. Transit and traffic concerns remain as pressing as ever. This is the stuff of our lives.

Yet how can any mayor or city council plan credibly deal with that with Premier Boss Hogtown up the street ready and apparently eager to just impose his own will? For example, a candidate might want to raise property taxes, or implement a new “revenue tool” from among the menu of those included in the City of Toronto Act. Will Ford allow it? Or will he just fire up the legislature to set Toronto’s local tax rates?

City council might vote to make the King St. transit pilot project permanent, as both leading mayoral candidates seem likely to do. But Ford could — and conceivably would — respond by just making streetcars illegal.

He’s already begun planning to take over the TTC subway system. What else will he take over — either officially, or by legislatively handcuffing Toronto’s government?

I expect a lot of people think this sounds like scaremongering, or overreacting. But I think it’s clear Ford has a keen interest in very local Toronto affairs, that he has shown he isn’t shy about using his provincial powers to get involved and, as my colleague Robert Benzie has reported, that he and his advisers see straight-up power plays like hitting the constitutional override button as political victories that make him look strong.

How does a mayor respond to that? How does a city council? It seems to me that is the most pressing question in this election.

Alongside the other pressing questions, clearly. But as a necessary precondition to addressing any of the others. Not just figuring what we should do about housing or transit or whatever else, but figuring how we can do those things with Ford there.

It’s not a question with an obvious answer. On the specific topic of cutting the size of council, we already see two contrasting workarounds. Tory’s suggestion of a referendum sometime next year, to show Ford how Toronto feels, seems a little like asking the public to weigh in on whether the barn door should have been closed a full year after the horses have galloped off. Challenger Jennifer Keesmaat’s suggestion to implement new, stronger community councils (as current laws would allow the city to do) in order to strengthen the city under a smaller council seems like a very promising lemonade recipe for a lemon of a situation, but the question again becomes if Ford would ever allow it.

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Tory often complained about feeling like a “boy in short pants” under Premier Kathleen Wynne, because he had to plead with the province to get anything accomplished. Under a stronger, more intrusive premier, is the plan to keep those shorts cleaned and pressed to facilitate all the more begging?

Keesmaat has struck a self-consciously more adversarial tone from the outset, jumping into the race because she thought Tory’s response was too weak and positioning herself as leader of the resistance. But is there a way to effectively resist through direct confrontation with a vastly more powerful opponent?

How can the city government work with or around Ford, given that he seems inclined to just dictate his preferences for the city and then impose them? I don’t know. But it sure feels like that is the ballot box question in this election.

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