Article content

The Ontario Legislature will meet for a midnight session as the Doug Ford government pushes through a bill that would invoke the notwithstanding clause to reduce the size of Toronto council.

Government House Leader Todd Smith played what could generously be called a long shot, asking the opposition parties to provide unanimous support to pass Bill 31 during a rare Saturday sitting.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Midnight debate scheduled for Bill 31 on Monday Back to video

Instead, opposition MPPs introduced amendments to slow down the process further and NDP House Leader Gilles Bisson asked Speaker Ted Arnott to rule the legislation out-of-order.

Following the session, which ended with the now-routine protests and evictions from the public galleries, Smith announced the government’s intention to produce an order-in-council to allow for overnight debate.

Photo by Ernest Doroszuk / Ernest Doroszuk/Toronto Sun/Postmedia

“We’re going to debate that bill from 12:01 a.m. until the early morning hours of Monday morning, and then we’ll return for Question Period on Monday morning,” Smith said.