City council to stay same size for 2026-2030 term after lengthy discussion on governance structure

CONNOR LUCZKA, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Stratford city council will remain as 11 members for the next term, after a move to condense it to nine members was withdrawn.

Coun. Jo-Dee Burbach originally put forward the motion, which came to the finance and labour standing committee on Aug. 11. As she said, there were a few reasons why she wanted to have the discussion.

“Thinking about our roles on council and the amount of remuneration that we’re paid, and the type of work that we do, and then comparing it to other municipalities of comparable size, it seemed reasonable that we would at least talk about reducing the size of council,” Burbach said. “And my thoughts around the remuneration part was that we would leave the budget line for the next council the same, but we would divide it into eight instead of 10 and thereby increasing the salary level of each councillor.

“But another big piece of why I was thinking about this was we're considering a procedural bylaw change, or the change of procedures in the chambers – going from a three-step process to a two-step, which will change the amount of work for councillors. … In effect, there'll be less meetings. So my thought was, if there's less meetings and less requirements, then the size of council could reasonably be smaller, thus saving possible taxpayer money as well.”

She did have reservations, however. As she and Coun. Lesley Biehn had previously discussed, with the advent of Stratford receiving strong mayor powers from the provincial government, in which the mayor could veto a split council decision, having less councillors would increase the role of the mayor and diminish the role of council. Still, she wanted to have a conversation on the matter.

Council, for its part, was largely in agreement that a reduction was not the answer.

“I don't support this at all,” Coun. Cody Sebben said. “I think it was initially brought up in subcommittee with a rationale not to save money, but essentially as a pay increase for the lucky eight, I guess, who are elected instead of 10 … (There’s) nothing I've heard from the public at any point that they would like to see less representation on council. From my opinion, I do value that we have 11 voices when we have discussions and votes.”

Coun. Harjinder Nijjar concurred.

“A larger council spreads responsibilities more evenly, instead of taking on additional duties,” Nijjar said. “Cost of governance: fewer councillors will increase individual workloads. Decision making dynamics: more members do enrich debate, good discussion. Scalability: the city is growing and we want it to grow, and we need to think of future growth in services that the public expects from us.”

After further discussion, Burbach withdrew the motion and thanked council for the conversation on governance, though it did not end there. Sebben tried to put forward a motion to establish a ward system, so that council is made up of councillors with constituents of specific areas of the city, rather than all 10 councillors being elected by the whole electorate. His motion died on the floor without a seconder.

The role of the deputy mayor, currently held by Nijjar, was discussed at length. Burbach had put forward a motion to investigate a policy for selecting a deputy mayor by rotation, with a maximum of four councillors permitted to serve in the role per term.

Currently, the role is appointed by vote of council for a two-year period. During this term, Nijjar has been elected for all four years.

Burbach had the idea after speaking with the deputy mayor of Ottawa, which has a similar process to the one Burbach suggested. The idea would be to give more councillors the opportunity to step into the role.

Her motion was defeated in a split 5-4 vote. She further put forward a motion to have the councillor who received the most votes during an election be appointed deputy mayor for a two-year term, though that was also defeated.

In the end, council voted to retain the current system.