Kelsey Bent, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Listowel Banner

LISTOWEL – At its April 29 meeting, North Perth Council requested a report from staff to help council members to understand the new strong mayor powers, in order to avoid exploiting them. 

As of May 1, strong mayor powers have been expanded to an additional 170 Ontario municipalities, including North Perth.

Bestowed by the Ontario Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Rob Flack and Premier Doug Ford, “It’s the provincial government’s expectation that the municipalities will use the strong mayor powers to support provincial priorities that will help the province and local communities grow,” North Perth Clerk Sarah Carter wrote in the report to council.

Carter’s report, presented on May 12, further stated that mayoral decisions and directions must be in writing, unless it’s protected under the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. 

“The clerk will circulate all mayoral decisions and directions to council via email and be posted publicly on the municipal website,” she said.

A mayor with strong mayor powers has the ability to direct municipal staff to undertake research, provide advice and carry out duties related to any authority or power granted to the mayor. 

As part of this new legislation, the mayor can also hire or dismiss the CAO. 

“This is a power that can be delegated by the mayor to all of council [as a whole],” Carter explained. 

“The mayor has the authority to determine the organizational structure of the municipality, which includes employment powers to hire and dismiss the head of any organizational unit and there is an exception to this part for statutory municipal officers … This is another power that can be delegated by the mayor to council or the CAO.”

Additionally, the North Perth mayor has the authority to establish or resolve committees, appoint chairs, vice chairs, and assign functions to those committees. 

“For the purpose of this legislation, a committee is considered a committee that’s entirely comprised of council members,” Carter explained.

The mayor has the authority to introduce matters for council’s consideration at a meeting, or introduce a bylaw for council’s consideration at a council meeting, regardless of the procedural bylaw. 

Veto power

“If the mayor is of the opinion that all or part of a bylaw could potentially interfere with prescribed provincial priorities, the mayor has the power to veto that bylaw,” Carter told council. 

This can be done by the veto action taken during the meeting, or by giving notice of intention to consider a veto. 

“Within two days of passing the bylaw, that notice is given to the clerk and must include the reasons for the intention to consider the veto,” Carter explained. “The clerk must give notice to council and the public by the next business day, a notice of intention to consider vetoing a bylaw opens a prescribed 14-day window within which the mayor may either approve the bylaw or, in writing, can say that it is going to be vetoed.”

“Following the issuance of a mayoral decision to veto a bylaw, council then has a 21-day window where they can consider overriding the veto. To override a veto, a 2/3 supermajority vote is required. The mayor is allowed to vote in that override the veto vote and is counted as part of council as a whole.”

Coun. Neil Anstet asked if the power to veto is exclusive to the previously listed priorities, for example, housing, transit, and infrastructure. 

“Are those the only three, or is there more that aren’t listed?” he asked. 

“In a lot of the webinars that we have sat through, they have mentioned that the legislation is pretty open to interpretation,” Carter replied. “So my understanding is that the mayor has to provide a reason based on the provincial priorities.”

Budget

“Under strong mayor powers, the municipal budget is no longer approved through the traditional council process, instead, it becomes the mayor’s budget,” Carter stated. 

The strong mayor is required to submit a proposed budget to council, the clerk, and the public no later than February 1 each year. If a budget is not submitted by that date, the municipality defaults to the traditional council-led budget process. 

“Some of this stuff is dumb,” Coun. Dave Johnston said. “Some of this stuff, it just seems anti-democracy.”

He added that the North Perth treasurer and budget committee have been “awesome” at getting the municipal budget together early. This year, the municipal budget was passed in the first meeting of the year. 

“So now, if we want to do a budget the way we do it, we have to wait till after February 1, and hope [the mayor] doesn’t submit a budget … Or can we do our work behind the scenes and just adopt it on the second of February? 

Treasurer Ashton Romani explained ways around this legislation. 

“There are ways around it to still have a budget in a timely manner,” he said. “There are different combinations of other municipalities that currently have strong mayor powers or have already had it. So there are certainly options we’re looking at, I think hopefully over the coming weeks, we’ll cover the plan and also confirm with the mayor as well on what the plan moving forward is.”

North Perth Mayor Todd Kasenberg added that he has no plans to change the process.

“I can assert that I do not want to disrupt our current process,” he said. “I think it works extremely efficiently and effectively.”

He further added that he plans to delegate the human resources abilities to this council. 

“I do want council to know that I will, in the near future, issue early mayoral directions or decisions that will delegate the various HR authorities described in the power list to this council, or to the CAO where permitted. That will come in the next week or two,” he said.

Anti-democratic

Multiple councillors added to Johnston’s sentiment that these new powers take away from traditional Canadian democracy. 

Coun. Allan Rothwell questioned the need for stronger leaders. 

“If anyone needs to know the difficulty with having a strong leader of an organization, they need to look no further than the President of the United States, which, frankly, goes off and does things that his party and its legislators have no idea of and the administration has no idea what’s going on,” he said. 

“To turn our back on years of legislative processes that have been established and have worked well over this period of time, and put in place items which have no legislative basis is extremely concerning.”

He went on to explain that the workaround of delegating the authority to the entire council is fine, but he added is still problematic as it is at the discretion of the mayor. 

“I know staff are aware of reports that some mayors that have been granted strong mayor powers are looking to some elements of the legislation which allows the ability to delegate that authority through to all council, if they so choose, and whether that is the basis upon which the strong mayor chooses to implement those powers, it may very well address the concerns that have been expressed around this council table, and perhaps can be the way forward,” he said.

“But I, like others here, am extremely concerned with what the provinces put before us, which no one here has asked for, and as I understand, most municipalities in Ontario have not asked for this … but it behooves us to take this time to understand what is placed before us and work our way through for North Perth and its residents.”

Coun. Sarah Blazek echoed those sentiments and added that this could all change in the next election. 

“While we can appreciate our current mayor’s statement that he has no interest in these powers, that does not mean that, you know, 2026 is an election year, and another mayor, moving forward, may feel differently,” she said. “I think it is incredibly important that staff have an opportunity to fully digest this information and figure out what exactly this looks like for North Perth, but it would also be prudent for us to provide some public information. I think that taxpayers deserve to know what it is that they’re voting for, and what the mayor’s powers are prior to the election in 2026.”

Learn more about our News Monitoring here.

---