TORONTO

A fight over Toronto’s plastic bag ban will be front and centre on the city council agenda this week.

Concerns have been raised over the speed at which council approved the ban and the lack of public consultation and a report from the city solicitor is expected to tell councillors as much.

Councillor Peter Milczyn will ask councillors to reconsider the decision to ban the bags as of Jan. 1 — a move that would need two-thirds of councillors to support it in order to move ahead — when they meet starting Tuesday.

“I never supported the (bag) fee because we never had the legal authority to do it so I was OK in removing the mandatory five-cent fee,” Milczyn said. “But we should keep doing something to try to reduce the use of bags.”

Council acted too hastily last June when it approved the surprise motion to ban the use of plastic bags in Toronto, Milczyn said.

“It is never good when council just does things on the fly,” he said. “I think the best way of dealing with it is just to nip it in the bud and say we’re not passing any bylaw to ban bags.”

The issue may be reopened regardless of his motion due to a pending report from the city’s legal staff, Milczyn said.

“Ultimately if they brought forward the bill to pass a bylaw — the legal instrument to pass a bylaw — if they brought that forward at council next week and it was a straight up and down vote, the majority would not vote for that bylaw,” he said. “It ain’t gonna happen.”

Councillor Gord Perks said he wants to see a report by city’s solicitor Anna Kinastowski before he picks a side but was adamant that he wants to ban bags.

“If (Kinastowski) is making a case that she can make the ban more bulletproof then I’ll look at it,” Perks said. “I want to ban bags and I’m going to do what it takes.”

Councillor Doug Ford said the ban should be “scrapped totally.”

“We’re not in favour of banning any bags,” Ford said.