So you don’t lose your seat if you’re convicted of a crime, but you do lose your seat if you go to jail?
Yes. As per the City Of Toronto Act, “A member of city council is disqualified from holding office if, at any time during the term of office of that member, he or she†would not be eligible to vote if a municipal election “was held at that time.†(The Municipal Act, which applies to all other Ontario municipalities, has the same clause.) The moment you cease to be an eligible voter, you’re disqualified from holding office and your seat is declared vacant.
Because people in jail can’t vote?
Exactly. Ontario’s Municipal Elections Act specifies that “a person who is serving a sentence of imprisonment in a penal or correctional institution†is barred from voting in municipal elections.
That makes sense.
No, actually it doesn’t. The Canada Elections Act says that “every person who is imprisoned in a correctional institution serving a sentence of two years or more†is prohibited from voting in federal elections. But the Supreme Court struck down that section in 2002, and the chief electoral officer has declined to enforce it ever since. And Ontario’s Election Act sets out no restrictions on prisoners voting in provincial elections. So in Ontario, inmates can take part in federal and provincial elections but not in municipal elections.
Why?
“I assume it is because no one has brought a [court] challenge,†Freya Kristjanson, who also practices municipal law, writes in an email.
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So he’d lose his seat as soon as he’s sentenced to jail time?
No. It’s when a person starts serving that sentence.