Cambridge, Kitchener, Waterloo and Guelph mayors get new powers

The mayors in Cambridge, Kitchener, Waterloo, Brantford and Guelph will get new strong mayor powers, Ontario's Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Steve Clark announced Friday.

The minister announced mayors of 26 municipalities would receive the powers as of July 1. The mayors of Toronto and Ottawa received the strong mayor powers last fall.

Clark said the powers will help heads of council cut red tape and speed up delivery of municipal-provincial priorities, including housing, transit and infrastructure projects.

Under these new rules the mayor can:

• Choose to appoint a municipality's chief administrative officer.
• Hire certain municipal department heads and establish or re-organize departments.
• Create committees of council, assign their functions and appoint chairs and vice-chairs.
• Propose the municipal budget, which would be subject to council amendments.
• Veto certain bylaws if the mayor thinks all or part of the bylaw could potentially interfere with a provincial priority.
• Bring forward matters for council consideration that can advance a provincial priority.

In certain cases, a mayor or head of council could pass a motion of council with just one-third of councillor support, rather than more than half.

"Our government wants to do what we can to help these leaders meet the challenges of rising housing costs and population growth," Clark said during the press conference Friday.

Clark said giving strong mayor powers to 26 municipalities was about "empowering municipal leaders to give them the tools to get the job done."

He rejected the suggestion that the strong mayor powers are not democratic.

"We need to make sure ... that we set our communities up for success," he said.

Local mayors react

Waterloo Mayor Dorothy McCabe was at Queen's Park for the Ontario Big City Mayors meeting with Clark and said she still needs time to fully understand what the strong mayor powers mean.

But, she added, if it's about housing getting built, then she doesn't see needing the powers in Waterloo.

"I can tell you that in Waterloo, we have a number of housing applications coming in every week and council and staff are working very collaboratively and with the developers as well to get these through the process in a very timely and appropriate manner," McCabe said Friday after the meeting.

"Housing developments are getting approved and so I don't see how that I would need strong mayor powers in order to get housing developments approved. Maybe other communities need this but that's just not the case in Waterloo."

Kitchener Mayor Berry Vrbanovic was also at the meeting in Toronto. He says in his work with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities he's seen situations where there are backlogs and these kinds of powers could have been used. 

That said, he doesn't intend to use them.

"I can't think of an instance when I would have used it locally, not even during [former mayor] Carl [Zehr's] time when he might have used it, to be frank, because of the way our council has historically operated," he said.

"My style over the last eight and a half years has been to be very collaborative, consensus building style, working to move forward on our shared priorities as a council and that's what it's going to continue to be going forward."

Guelph Mayor Cam Guthrie appeared alongside Clark at Friday's press conference but did not speak. In a press release, he said the strong mayor powers come at a time "when mayors need every tool to advance work on housing pledges and meet new challenges."

He said that while the strong mayor powers "may not be required in all contexts" that "our citizens expect results and tools such as this can help us achieve them."

Waterloo Regional Chair Karen Redman offered a one line response when asked to comment on the strong mayor powers being granted to three cities in the region: "We've always worked collaboratively with local mayors and will continue to do so."

Kitchener 'very collaborative,' councillor says

CBC K-W reached out to councillors in Cambridge, Kitchener, Waterloo and Guelph for their thoughts on their mayors getting these new powers.

Waterloo Coun. Jen Vasic said she needed to learn more about the strong mayor powers before she could comment.

Kitchener Coun. Bil Ioannidis said he's not a proponent of strong mayor powers and he didn't see a situation where Vrbanovic would use them.

"I don't see our mayor and our council going down that road," he said Friday. "We are very collaborative. We like to work together and that's kind of how we get things done."

The mayor should have "a bit more power" than an individual councillor, Kitchener Coun. Scott Davey said in an email.

"Having said that, each use [of strong mayor powers] would really be a failure to build consensus," Davey said, adding if it's used, it "should be a last resort."

Democratically, Davey said he thinks the move is OK because in Kitchener, even if the mayor needed one third of council to vote in favour of something, that's still four of 10 councillors.

"In other words, the power implies the mayor can only overturn the slimmest losses ," he said, for example, a six to five vote.

Coun. Debbie Chapman, who is also the NDP candidate in the yet-to-be-called Ontario byelection for Kitchener Centre, said the move weakens local governments and undermines the ability of local officials to serve residents.

"All leaders — including the mayor and the premier — should take the time to listen to what people actually want, instead of imposing these decisions on them," Chapman said in an email. "That's what democracy is for after all."

Cambridge Coun. Nicholas Ermeta said the strong mayor powers are "a new provincial initiative and I believe we all have much to learn."

He added it's "great that the province recognizes Cambridge as a unique and strong community."

'Affront against democracy': Guelph councillor

Guelph Coun. Erin Caton called the move "an affront against democracy."

"Mayors are elected to represent the local community, not tow a provincial mandate," she said in an email.

"We are already subject to provincial regulations for housing, planning, the environment. Council cannot make decisions that counter our legal responsibility. Using strong mayor powers would be anti-democratic political tantrums."

Guelph Coun. Phil Allt agreed it didn't sound like a democratic move to him.

"The notion that the mayor has greater authority because they were elected from across the city flies in the face of principles of representative democracy," Allt said. "A principle of democracy is 50 per cent plus one. This is a check on democracy. This is basically saying that we don't trust democracy."

He said he'd welcome a conversation with Guthrie to understand how the city's mayor planned to use the powers. He also said he had questions about the mayor gaining the power to hire and fire people and would want to know more about how that would work.

"I don't want a politicized workforce," Allt said.

Coun. Leanne Caron said in an email she's opposed to the strong mayor model.

"We are not 'children of the province' anymore. We are adults. Our job is not to say 'yes sir' and do as we are told like children," she said.

"Our job is to work together and tackle serious issues on behalf of the citizens who put their faith in us. We can't do that without the right tools. That tool kit does not include strong mayor powers."

Instead, she said the tools include new revenue sources, full planning authority, the right to choose an electoral process such as opting for ranked ballots and "a provincial government that treats cities like partners."

Council had a "robust" conversation about strong mayor powers last fall when Toronto and Ottawa were given them, Coun. Dominique O'Rourke said.

"I was against it then and I'm against it now. I think it's an unnecessary intrusion on local democracy," she said.

O'Rourke also raised concerns about the possibility the mayor could veto items or hire or fire city staff.

"I think strong mayors blurs the line for the mayor's accountability to the people who elected him or to Queen's Park," she said.

Move won't solve housing crisis: Schreiner

Guelph MPP and Green Party of Ontario Leader Mike Schreiner said giving 26 municipalities strong mayor powers would not solve the province's housing crisis.

He said the Progressive Conservative government should instead look at other tools, such as ending exclusionary zoning, to allow people to build more homes.

"Strong local governments are built on a diversity of viewpoints that represent the people they serve," Schreiner said in a release. "Undermining local democracy takes us in the wrong direction."