Council unanimously rejects strong mayor powers, but they are coming to Stratford anyway

CONNOR LUCZKA, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Undemocratic, upsetting, offensive, broken, and scary were just some of the words Stratford city council used to describe the strong mayor powers bestowed on Mayor Martin Ritsma on May 1.

The powers, which grant heads of council with executive authority in certain scenarios, were topic of discussion at the April 28 council meeting, after Coun. Mark Hunter had earlier requested a report from staff on what the endowment means for the city.

As clerk Tatiana Dafoe shared in a fulsome presentation, the powers include the ability to appoint a municipality’s chief administrative officer (CAO), hire certain municipal department heads and reorganize departments, create committees of council, propose a municipal budget, propose certain bylaws the mayor says advances a provincial priority, veto certain bylaws the mayor says could interfere with a provincial priority, and bring forward matters for discussion by council if the mayor says they could advance a provincial priority.

After her presentation, Coun. Jo-Dee Burbach had strong words for these powers.

“It is undemocratic,” she said. “And it's upsetting, because there's nothing that can be done … except for letting our voices be heard that we're not happy with it.”

Hunter called the powers “kind of offensive” and stated a list of options for council and the city, including to potentially sue the province over infringing on the municipality’s rights, though said that from his research nowhere in the written portions of Canada’s constitution are local governments even mentioned, effectively meaning that municipalities indeed are only creatures of the province.

Instead, Hunter moved a motion to ask the province to take Stratford off of the list of municipalities with the powers, which was unanimously supported.

Coun. Larry McCabe said that he was especially concerned with the powers given the rise of authoritarianism in the south.

“Our country and its democratic institutions should be safeguarding these democratic principles that provide accountability to the public and not undermine them,” McCabe said. “I think it will come as a surprise to many people out there that there is not a democratic right on the municipal level to be represented, and that should concern people if they weren't concerned about it now – that this apparent right is now no longer going to be utilized in the municipal level.”

Much of the conversation surrounded the realpolitik reality of the powers – that if council has such strong and public opposition to the province’s measure, its prospects might be negatively impacted when one-time provincial grants, which have become a lifeline for crucial capital projects, come to be dolled out.

But that in itself was cause for concern.

“The whole system that we have is so broken,” Burbach exasperated. “Why aren't we getting consistent funding from the federal level and from the provincial level for housing? It shouldn't be a competition to pit municipalities against each other. It's just – it's crazy – and the strong mayor powers (are) going to lead us down that road of pitting municipalities against each other when we should be working together. All of a sudden, we're competition for each other.”

“I don’t want to give up on (Canadian values) just for a few bucks,” Hunter agreed.

With the political side in mind, Ritsma was cautious when speaking of the powers that evening, though did indicate that they were never something he asked for and was hesitant to use them.

“Some of the ‘what-ifs’ and ‘don’t-knows’ frighten me,” Ritsma said, saying that the concept of the powers is new and alien to reality in Canada, likening them to the idea of a fentanyl border czar.

As stated by Dafoe and Ritsma, despite council’s strong opposition to the powers (and Ritsma’s hesitancy), the powers are coming to the mayor’s chair regardless. He assured council that what he does once given the powers will be indicative of his feelings. He will continue to be one member of council and will keep collaboration rather than sole authority as his priority.

Ritsma and Hunter both shared that they spoke with Perth-Wellington MPP Matthew Rae on the powers, with the latter saying that “reading between the lines” of Rae’s correspondence, the province won’t be retracting the powers anytime soon.

Coun. Cody Sebben subsequently moved a motion to direct the mayor to delegate what strong mayor powers may be delegated back to council, such as hiring a new CAO and other department heads. That motion passed unanimously.

Ritsma ended the conversation that night by thanking council for the thorough discussion and saying his response will be coming at a future date, once he “does his homework” and prepares his thoughts.

Though, with his new powers, he could ignore council’s request, as Coun. Bonnie Henderson contemplated after the vote.