An Overview of Strong Mayors Powers in Ontario.
Dr. David Richards (Faculty of Business Administration) - Lakehead University
Adapted and adopted from a model that has been employed in some municipalities in the United States, the Province of Ontario implemented legislation granting additional powers and duties to the head of council in designated municipalities (Mullaly, 2023). These strong mayor powers apply to the head of council regardless of whether or not they use the term “mayor”; however, for simplicity, the head of council will be referred to as the mayor in this report.
In order to be granted strong mayor powers, the mayor was required to agree to support Provincial priorities related to building 1.5 million new residential homes by December 31, 2031 and to support the construction and maintenance infrastructure to support housing as outlined in Ontario Regulation 580/22. Municipalities had to agree to specific housing targets by the end of 2031. The City of Thunder Bay was assigned a housing target of 2,200 homes (City of Thunder Bay, 2023).
The implementation of strong mayor powers has resulted in some concerns about the potential for abuse of power or an undermining of democracy, but others see is a potentially useful tool to facilitate more efficient government and to enable the provincial priorities.
