Strong Mayor Would Be Dangerous In Rural Municipalities

Jeff Green | Aug 17, 2022

The Strong Mayor legislation that has been tabled by Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Steve Clark is quite alarming when looked at through a rural lens.

Among other things, it permits the Mayor of a municipality to hire and fire the Chief Administrative Officer of their municipality and to prepare and to personally prepare the annual municipal budget.

These are the major functions of a municipal council on an annual and ongoing basis. Whenever a new municipal councillor arrives at their first orientation meeting, they are told that they are not supposed to communicate directly with the municipal employees directly, that all communication, all of their authority under the Ontario Municipal act, is to be filtered through the Chief Administrative Officer, their only direct employee.

If Council no longer has that one employee to oversee, and to hire and fire, what is left for Council to do, except over-ride the Mayors’ new authority in extreme cases by mounting a 2/3 majority. Under a rural scenario, that means all 4 councillors in a municipality such as Addington Highlands, 4 out of six councillors in North Frontenac, or 6 our of 8 councillors in Central or South Frontenac, would need to vote together to counter the authority of the local Mayor.

Given that members of Council cannot meet together to discuss municipal matters outside of formal council meetings, also a rule under the municipality, it would take an extraordinary circumstance for the local Mayor to not have at least minimal support to exercise total authority over the township’s finances and operations.

The only thing holding back the Mayor from exercising any of that authority are the provisions of the Municipal Act and directives from the Provincial government, which are far reaching and extensive, but they are not local rules, they are top down rules, As it is, municipal councils have little leeway to do anything that the province does not explicitly support, and with a Strong Mayor system it would be the Mayor who would have that leeway. Council would be completely sidelined.

The Strong Mayor legislation that has been tables is limited, for the moment, to the Cities of Ottawa and Toronto, but the Premier has already indicated he is considering extending it to the Mayors of large Ontario municipalities sooner than later, and it could then extend to smaller cities and rural municipalities, if Doug Ford so wishes.

When you look at the way small municipalities, such as ours, work now, the local Mayor has minimal direct authority, but a fair bit of impact. They represent the township and receive information directly from the Chief Administrative Officer, and in the time in between council meetings, they often act on behalf of council on minor matters. Within Council meetings themselves, they chair the meetings and, unless challenged by council, control the length and character of the debate on the issues that come before council.

But when it comes time to vote, on small matters or large ones, such as the budget or hiring a Chief Administrative Officer, they have one vote and one vote only. Therefore, in order to operate effectively, in order to move their own ideas forward, they need to keep council on their side.

We have seen Mayor’s take on their own agendas in our local municipalities, but when they go beyond the comfort level of council, they are pegged back.

It does not seem coincidental that, of the two Mayor’s whose cities will have Strong Mayor’s in place after the October 25 election, the one who is running again, John Tory in Toronto, sees a benefit to the new system, and the one who is not running, Jim Watson in Ottawa, is opposed.

The Premier said that the Strong Mayor concept is designed to ensure that new housing is constructed in the coming years.

It may indeed be a slow process to approve housing projects, but the solution to that, at least in rural Ontario, would be a streamlined approval process, more resources for the agencies the need to comment because of the implications of development on the water table, and a quicker and more transparent planning process.

The idea that the Mayor can over-ride all of the controls that are in place to protect residents who are already living in our townships, and environment that we share, seems like a bad idea. It makes us vulnerable to wither a corrupt or irrational Mayor, which is not a good idea.

And people in the largest cities, who will have this in place after October, or smaller cities who could have it in place in 4 years or perhaps sooner, are also at risk of being hijacked by a corrupt or irrational Mayor.

Anyone who thinks this is less or more likely to happen in a City with millions of electors, or a small municipality with hundreds of electors, need only look to recent history to se examples where that would be an expensive disaster.

One person in municipal office, unfettered by local concerns, checked only be the whims of one person at Queen’s Park, a Premier with a majority government and tight control over his own party, is not in the public interest

What is needed are clear rules and procedures, and controls that do not strangle development but still offer protections for the public.

Offering a way to bypass the rules when one person thinks it is a good idea, is not a solution to the housing crunch or any of the other problems facing Ontario municipalities, large and small alike.