‘Strong mayor’ powers contingent on aligning with provincial goals
Experts say new powers would keep the mayor under the province’s thumb.

Thestar.com
Aug. 15, 2022
Ben Spurr and David Rider

Premier Doug Ford unveiled details of his plan to grant big-city mayors sweeping new powers last week, and some of them come with strings attached.

As expected, the Progressive Conservative government’s “strong-mayor” legislation would empower the leaders of Ontario’s largest cities to veto some city council decisions. It would also grant them other authorities, such as the ability to table the annual budget and appoint senior city staff.

The province intends to enact the changes, which were first reported by the Star last month, in Toronto and Ottawa in time for the start of the new term of council on Nov. 15. It could later extend them to other cities.

But while Ford’s government has said the plan is about empowering mayors to address their cities’ challenges, some of the new powers would be limited by provincial decree. The new law states that aside from budget votes, the mayor could only exercise a veto to quash a council decision that they believed could “interfere with a prescribed provincial priority.” The mayor’s ability to bring proposals directly to council, another new power, would also be contingent on the policy aligning with Queen’s Park’s goals.

Myer Siemiatycki, politics professor emeritus at Toronto Metropolitan University, said tying the mayor's veto to provincial priorities represents "a very dangerous turn for local government and local democracy."

Experts who spoke to the Star said linking the new powers to provincial policy isn’t an element of strong-mayor systems in other jurisdictions. They warn it could hamstring mayors’ ability to use their new authorities in their cities’ best interests, while keeping the leaders of Ontario’s most populous municipalities under the province’s thumb.

Myer Siemiatycki, politics professor emeritus at Toronto Metropolitan University, said tying the mayor’s veto to provincial priorities represents “a very dangerous turn for local government and local democracy.”

In an interview, he called the province’s plan “a weird mixture of strengthening the role of the mayor vis-a-vis the rest of city council, but really weakening the mayor, and making him or her vulnerable, vis-a-vis the premier and provincial government.”

Under the legislation, the government would formally designate priorities to which the mayor’s veto, which could only be overruled by a two-thirds vote of council, would apply. The province says its goal of building 1.5 million new homes over the next 10 years, and the construction and maintenance of major infrastructure such as transit and highways, would be on the list. The government could add additional priorities as it sees fit.

“Our government was re-elected with a strong mandate to help more Ontarians find a home that meets their needs and budget,” and city councils “play a crucial role in determining the housing supply,” said Chris Poulos, a spokesperson for Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Steve Clark.

The legislation aims to “give the mayors of Toronto and Ottawa the ability to move provincial priorities forward” and “empower municipal leaders to work more effectively with the province to reduce timelines for development, standardize processes and address local barriers to increasing the supply of housing,” he said.

Karen Chapple, director of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto, broadly supports granting vetoes and other new powers to the mayor. But while the premier has said he took inspiration for his strong-mayor plan from U.S. cities, Chapple said there’s no equivalent south of the border of tying mayors’ powers to state priorities.

“You would never see that (in U.S. cities),” she said.

Karen Chapple, director of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto, broadly supports granting vetoes and other new powers to the mayor. But while the premier has said he took inspiration for his strong-mayor plan from U.S. cities, Chapple said there's no equivalent south of the border of tying mayors' powers to state priorities.

Chapple said that in theory, a mayoral veto could lead to better outcomes on issues like last fall’s debate on expanding Toronto’s rooming house licensing system.

Housing advocates said the plan would have made it easier for low-income residents to find decent places to live, and it had Mayor John Tory’s support. But he was forced to back down when it became apparent a majority of councillors wouldn’t approve it.

Whether Ford’s strong-mayor system would have enabled Tory to use a veto to push through the plan isn’t clear, however, because it’s not certain how rooming house licensing aligns with the province’s priority of building more housing.

A lot rests on “what is the fine print on the provincial priorities,” Chapple said.

Uncertainty aside, Chapple said roping the veto to provincial policy goals means whoever holds the office wouldn’t always have the ability to use it to advance their own policies, and could also have other negative consequences.

She speculated that under the new law, if a mayor wanted to overrule council on a matter that wasn’t already provincial policy, they could ask Queen’s Park to designate the issue a priority. That would make the mayor’s veto power subject to closed-door negotiations between the mayor and premier, which could lead to “all kinds of deal-making and stuff that doesn’t really sound too appetizing, or democratic,” she said.

Some urbanists, including the University of Toronto’s Gabriel Eidelman, argue that Toronto needs strong-mayor powers to improve decision-making and budget formulation. It will also make the mayor more accountable for decisions than in the current system where city staff often lead the process, proponents say.

Toronto City Hall at Nathan Phillips Square, March 16, 2020. The province intends to enact the changes, which were first reported by the Star last month, in Toronto and Ottawa in time for the start of the new term of council on Nov. 15. It could later extend them to other cities.

Others note that Tory was elected with more than 500,000 votes but has the same vote at city council as ward representatives chosen by a fraction of that number. And, while Ford is the first to commit to the change, politicians including Tory, former mayor David Miller and former Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty have all said, at one time or another, that it’s necessary to move the city forward.

Coun. Josh Matlow (Ward 12, Toronto--St. Paul’s) said there was no evidence to support the “false narrative” that a strong-mayor system would allow cities to get more housing built or more efficiently address other challenges. He said the real effect of the legislation will be to turn Toronto’s mayor into “a servant of the province.”

Matlow said if the Ford government wanted to enable Toronto to tackle issues like the housing crisis, it would grant the city additional powers to raise revenue and make decisions about land use planning.

The province’s plan “doesn’t strengthen Toronto; it actually strengthens Doug Ford’s oversight over our city,” he said.