I don’t like it, and neither should you.
On Friday, June 16, our provincial government granted Barrie strong mayor powers, the same powers that 27 other large Ontario municipalities now have.
I don’t like it.
My dislike isn’t about Barrie Mayor Alex Nuttall and his potential use of these powers.
My dislike is about the structure of our democracy, that mayors should not have the power to veto council decisions — even if they conflict with provincial priorities such as housing, transit and infrastructure ... and even if said veto can be overturned by a two-thirds majority of councillors.
The mayor has one vote on council, just like its other members. If the mayor wants certain action taken, make a good enough case to convince other councillors to vote for it. Try building consensus instead of bossing elected people around.
Strong mayors can also prepare and table their city's budget, instead of council. This is the annual document, and discussion, that sets service levels in a municipality and property tax hikes (they never go down).
The budget isn’t something voters should want any mayor doing by himself or herself.
Ditto for hiring and firing department heads, another strong mayor power.
There’s probably more to the strong mayor powers, and I haven’t read all of the fine print. I don’t need to.
Strong mayor powers are part of a strategy inflicted upon Ontarians ever since voters gave Premier Doug Ford and his Progressive Conservatives a majority government about a year ago.
Ever since, Queen’s Park has been sticking its nose in local politics until it gets its way.
Just as it does with residential planning, making it all but impossible for residents in single-family neighbourhoods to keep three-storey townhouses and nine-storey towers out of their community. In their opinion, these developments don’t fit, and since they’re the ones who must live with it, they don’t like that.
You can just see developers and their consultants rubbing their hands at the profit that’s rolling in.
Or Ford and company eliminating development charges, needed to pay for hard services like roads and water/sewer pipes, on certain types of housing, so Sam Cancilla’s "Little Old Lady on Queen Street," who’s been paying her property taxes for years, now has yet another bill to pay.
Sure, municipalities are "a child of the province," as some wag once proclaimed. The province says "jump," the local councils say "how high?"
But a really smart mayor would look at these new powers, given by the province, and not use them.
And that is what might happen. Maybe.
Power that you have is a difficult thing not to use, especially when push comes to shove.
And let’s not forget the carrot Ford dangled in front of the very noses of Ontario municipalities. He gave Barrie and 25 other larger Ontario municipalities strong mayor powers after they committed to a housing pledge, part of a provincial goal to build 1.5 million homes by 2031. This city’s council pledged, earlier this year, to a target of 23,000 new homes built by then, in addition to what’s already planned.
So Barrie got the strong mayor powers.
Oh, and the housing pledge is a requirement of Bill 23, the province’s More Homes Built Faster Act of 2022. The province’s grip on local councils tightens a little more.
Now you might think that my argument is a little one-sided, but this is a column and I need not be particularly fair to those who love the strong mayor powers.
I can just hear them chanting “get ‘er done!” (Just for clarification, the PC slogan and song a year ago was "Get It Done," but I’m taking some editorial licence here.)
For some perspective, on June 16, I went to Geoffrey Booth, a political science teacher at Georgian College’s Orillia campus, who is retiring at month’s end.
I asked him what he thought of the strong mayor powers.
“At a macro level, it's about deciding which should take precedence — democratic accountability or bureaucratic efficiency, both of which are desirable outcomes for government,” Booth said. “The former depends upon developing consensus among a majority of elected representatives, often an exercise in patience and compromise, whereas the latter, as they say, ‘gets things done’ in a timelier fashion.
“Strong mayor powers permit a minority, led by the mayor, to behave as if it were a majority on council,” Booth added. “It can speed up the policy process, but runs counter to the fundamental principle of majority rule, and can undermine the legitimacy of a chosen option (by a government).”
There you have it, both sides of the argument and a reasonable opinion.
So here’s my advice, for what it’s worth: Leave the strong mayor powers on the shelf gathering dust. That’s where they belong.
But I won’t believe it until I see it.
Bob Bruton covers city hall for BarrieToday. What did Winston Churchill once say? Something about democracy being the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried. That’s worth keeping in mind.
