St. Marys council unified with concerns around strong mayor powers coming into effect May 1

By Galen Simmons, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

St. Marys council is speaking out against a provincial plan to bolster mayoral decision-making powers across the province.

Following an announcement by the province earlier this month that St. Marys, along with 168 other Ontario municipalities, would be granted strong mayor powers effective May 1, Mayor Al Strathdee and the rest of council have expressed serious concerns with the new legislation aimed at bolstering the unilateral decision-making power of heads of council and the impact that could have on the town after the next municipal election in 2026.

“I was totally taken off guard by this,” Strathdee told council at its April 22 meeting. “ … There’s a lot of interesting parts in this that I still don’t understand how and why, and I wanted to ensure council that I won’t be (using strong mayor powers) anytime soon. I had to think back on my time during this particular council if there would have been a time or a situation where I may have said, ‘I need to do this or I need to overrule council,’ and I, quite frankly, can’t think of one. This group, I think, has worked quite well together.

“ … There’s nothing I can see for me personally to enact. … We certainly don’t know what everything means. The government is certainly intent on bringing the legislation in as of May 1 and I can’t see, certainly in my time going forward, that I would necessarily want to make a lot of changes, and I’m not sure why they’ve made such drastic changes other than to say there are some dysfunctional councils out there. Whether this would solve the problem, I don’t know. … This is almost indicative of some of the ways that the mayorship is set up in U.S. towns and cities.”

The expansion of strong mayor powers by the province was introduced with the stated intention of empowering more mayors in more municipalities across the province “to get homes and infrastructure built faster.”

“Mayors know their municipalities best, and we support them in taking bold actions for their communities,” Ontario Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Rob Flack said in a press release announcing the latest proposed expansion.

Strong mayor 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 the 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.

However, the Association of Municipal Managers, Clerks and Treasurers of Ontario (AMCTO), which has been tracking the use of strong mayor powers since they were first introduced in Toronto and Ottawa in 2022, said there is no evidence to suggest this legislation has any impact on the number of housing starts in municipalities that have been granted the powers.

Instead, AMCTO says its research suggests strong mayor powers have blurred the political-administrative authority between the roles of heads of council and chief administrative officers (CAOs), threatening the neutrality of the public service and politicizing local government leadership.

In St. Marys, town staff have also been left wondering how strong mayor powers will work from an administrative perspective, and how decisions by a mayor using these powers will be communicated to the public.

“Any decision implemented by a head of council shall be done so in writing and in accordance with the regulation,” St. Marys clerk Jenna McCartney told council. “We as staff are still trying to find out exactly what that looks like and how that must be communicated because those decisions are to be public information. There is an understanding among some of the municipalities that have already gone about the change that this information should be shared on the municipality’s website that would list each of those decisions for everyone’s benefit.

“ … While this is all new to the town, there have been a number of staff who have been offered additional workshops and trainings coming up in the next couple of weeks to understand how this has impacted some of those larger and fast-growing municipalities, and how they have implemented it. So, what does a mayor decision look like? Is there a standard format? Once it has passed, is there a way to communicate that? Does that go on the website? Does that come by way of the next report to council … so that everyone is aware of what has been implemented?”

As staff learn that process, McCartney said she will bring town policies and procedures that need to be updated to council for consideration.

In the meantime, however, councillors are worried about how these strong mayor power might impact the relationships between themselves and the mayor, as well the relationships between council, the CAO and heads of staff departments.

“This is totally undemocratic,” Coun. Marg Luna said. “To me, I’m questioning the value of council in the future. I’m not speaking (about) this seated mayor; I’m saying that a future mayor could really put this power to bad use. I think one of the major jobs that we have as councillors is a budget, which is what affects all of our meetings, and now, what I understand from this, we really won’t have any input into that budget because we could be told by a mayor, ‘This is the budget I’m presenting and I need two of you to accept it,’ and it’s done.

“Undemocratic.”

Luna also noted the relatively short amount of time, seven days, given to municipalities to respond to province with any concerns after the expansion of strong mayor powers was announced on April 9.

“I’m questioning these powers that we’re putting in one individual; control over the CAO and heads of departments – hiring and firing, discipline, whatever. The CAO has to have confidence in the people around this table that he can speak freely to us and not be worried about the opinion of one individual,” she added.

While there is still much more information required to fully understand how strong mayor powers will be implemented in St. Marys and what their impact might be, Luna and her fellow council members, including Strathdee, voiced support for the idea of ultimately passing a resolution politely declining the use of these powers.

While this resolution might only be symbolic, Luna said it’s up to councils across the province, as well as concerned members of the public, to speak against this expansion of strong mayor powers in hopes this legislation is reversed by the province.

“If enough municipalities protest this and enough of the public is aware of this … legislation can be revoked, it can be reversed, and I think that’s what needs to be done,” Luna said.