Strong Mayors Is A Stealth Time Bomb

Jeff Green | May 15, 2025

Local municipalities that have become strong mayor communities as of May 1st, are putting measures in place to bury the designation in a series of “delegated authority” protocols to return decision making to Council and senior township staff, in many cases.

Where delegation is not possible, such as budget preparation, the mayor can request staff to prepare a budget in much the same manner that Council did up until now. And the mayor can receive that budget and present it to Council, in much the same way that councils used to receive the budget directly from staff, for comment and amendment.

Because the strong mayor discussion in Central Frontenac revealed some pre-existing tensions between Council and Mayor Frances Smith, the situation is a bit different than it is in South and North Frontenac. In South Frontenac, Mayor Vandewal has delegated his authority on the first opportunity, and Mayor Lichty is expected to do the same next week.
Council in Central Frontenac is receiving a report about how the delegation process can work, and it will be up to Mayor Smith to formalise things at that point.

But whatever an individual mayor does, the fact is that “delegated authority” can be ended by any strong mayor, at any time. All it requires is written notice to Council.

The strong mayor provisions are one of the ways in which the provincial government is setting up Ontario for direct provincial decision-making regarding the location and timing of housing, commercial, and industrial development.

The province can and does override local planning processes already, and has all the authority it needs to do so, without delay.
The strong mayor powers, as far as I can tell, were developed with big cities in mind. So a development friendly mayor cannot be stymied by a reluctant Council, whether that reluctance is based on genuine social and environmental concerns, the interests of existing residents (ie NIMBYism) or something else.

This is has not been the case in Frontenac County, where in the past pro-development councils and mayors have been thwarted by provincial rules and processes.
The thinking here is that instead of solving their own problem, the province is granting an unnecessary power that only undermines a well established and coherent set of political relationships between councils, mayors, and municipal staff.

Someday, however, the strong mayors may be useful to the province to push through a development in Frontenac County that would otherwise be hindered or blocked.It is impossible to say where or when that can happen, but one potential location is in Battersea, where Brad Lamb, the self proclaimed “King of the Condo” in Toronto, has been buying up property in recent years.

Strong mayors will fade into the background very soon, only to return, maybe, somewhere down the line