A single judge of the Ontario Superior Court has ruled that Premier Doug Ford’s overriding of municipal powers to remove bike lanes in Toronto is unconstitutional because, the judge says, it places cyclists at risk and thus violates Section 7 of the Charter.
The ruling strictly applied a reasonableness test, and the judge decided that since the political decision was contrary to internal provincial civil service findings that removing the bicycle lanes would decrease safety for cyclists, the Charter infringement could not be justified under Section 1: The Oakes Test
The government is filing an appeal to the Court of Appeal for Ontario.
There will be plenty of expert commentary regarding constitutional separation of powers between the legislative and judicial branches, whether the ruling changes the Charter by creating positive rights, and what it means for government implementation of physical infrastructure changes.
I’ll share those opinions as they are published.
Fundamentally, I question whether it is the role of the judiciary to rule on a political decision of this nature.
I personally find it problematic that the Premier of Ontario is acting as the Mayor of Toronto.
The recourse for this is through the ballot box.
Production Details
v. 1.0.0
Published: August 7, 2025
Last updated: August 7, 2025
Author: Joey Coleman
Update Record
v. 1.0.0 original version
Ford, along with his brother, changed the long-standing bicycle bylaw before they left City Hall in 2014. They allowed all bicycles, adult and child to be operated on sidewalks as long as they were going a “reasonable speed”, which was not defined in numeric terms. That was the first step toward getting bikes out of the roadways that the Premier seems hell-bent on continuing. He says they’ll be allowed on side-streets but no cyclist in their right mind is going to take a meandering detour. They’ll just get on the sidewalks and go the direct route.
So pulling the bike lanes endangers pedestrians.
At a time when we should be reworking all the rules to deal with e-bikes, e-scooters, etc. that don’t follow any rules, he just wants all of this out of the way of his car.
I fully agree. The decision is not good policy.
I write this as someone who lived at the University of Toronto in 2019/20 and never bicycled because I did not feel safe doing so in Toronto. [A requirement of the Southam Fellowship is being resident in Toronto during the term.]
Because the mayor is not being a mayor. She’s more concerned about art than anything else
The city of Toronto votes against Ford and the conservatives, so in your logic the city is everting its power at the ballot box, the problem is the city is not given agency in within its own borders. This is similar to the OMB dictating what the city had to allow be built. The city has no way out of this, if we had a path to separate from Ontario to gain some self determination I’d be all for it, instead we are bullied by a province that sees us a cash making machine with little to show us to be the city we wish to be
No that would be ms chow. Taxes are up, city says it’s poor. Millions spen on tiled art on the ttc,artspaces. Roads are falling apart.