Ontario Premier Doug Ford listens to Finance Minister Victor Fedeli during the first session of the 42nd Parliament of Ontario. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Tijana Martin

TORONTO — Premier Doug Ford’s surprise plan to reduce the number of councillors in Toronto won’t get any input from the public before it becomes law.

On Thursday, the government passed a motion to allow Bill 5 to skip past the committee stage where the public and experts traditionally get to weigh in on proposed laws.

The procedure — called time allocation — allows for the government to speed up the passing of a bill. Its a practice that the now Progressive Conservative government decried as the “worst of the worst” when they were still on the opposition benches a few months ago.

The NDP are taking issue with the motion on Bill 5 in particular because Ford didn’t campaign on the plan to reduce the number of councillors from 47 to 25 and end four elections for regional chairs. However, he quickly moved on it once in government, introducing the plan less than a month into his tenure.

“Here’s the guy saying that he wants to be more transparent, and what he’s doing is keeping the public from even getting into the legislature, into our committees to speak. I think is a real problem,” NDP House Leader Gilles Bisson said on Thursday.

He challenged the Ford government to send the bill to committee before passing it into law. “Why is he afraid of allowing the public to come into the legislature for a couple of days under committees and have their say?”

On Wednesday, Government House Leader Todd Smith defended the decision to skip over committee by pointing out that his party had just recently won a majority government.

“What’s democratic is on June 7 the people of Ontario spoke loud and clear, and they made a clear choice,” Smith said. “They picked Premier Doug Ford and a PC government.”

Bisson called that justification a “slap in the face” to people who want to have their say on the bill.

The NDP say the bill could pass its final vote in the house as early as Tuesday.

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