This article was first published by CollingwoodToday, a Village Media publication.
Simcoe-Grey MPP Brian Saunderson, who just this week was appointed parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, says the province trusts that Ontario’s mayors know what’s best for their communities, and sees the use of strong mayor powers as “an opportunity.”
On April 9, the province announced in a morning media release that they would be extending strong mayor powers to 169 more municipalities across Ontario, adding to the 47 municipalities already who have already been granted the powers since 2022.
Several area municipalities are slated to receive strong mayor powers on May 1, including Collingwood, The Blue Mountains, Grey Highlands, Meaford, Wasaga Beach, Midland, Clearview, Owen Sound, and Springwater.
“Philosophically, the mayors run for a specific role. The other council members are just the first number across the finish line,” said Saunderson in an interview. “The mayors run on specific platforms so they’re accountable in the way that I am or any other politician is.”
“There are guardrails that are built into this,” he said.
Saunderson refers to the rules put out by the province on the specific instances that strong mayor powers can be used, including appointing a chief administrative officer, hiring certain department heads, reorganizing departments, proposing certain bylaws to potentially advance identified provincial priorities, or vetoing certain bylaws if they have the potential to interfere with provincial priorities.
The intention of the powers, according to the province, is to get more homes built faster.
“It’s a concept that has been unveiled. Looking forward, we’ll see how it unfolds and how it gets exercised. It’s up to the mayor how it gets exercised. It’s not mandatory for them,” he said. “I see in this an opportunity for municipalities to move forward.”
While 14 of Simcoe County’s 16 member municipalities were part of the updated list to receive strong mayor powers as of May 1 released this week, Saunderson said he’d like to see all 16 given the powers in the future.
“The mayors have the best sense of what’s going on in their communities,” said Saunderson.
He declined to comment on the recent decision of Orillia’s mayor Don McIsaac to use strong mayor powers given to the municipality to respond to the recent ice storm to fire the city’s new CAO one week prior to his start date.
“There is potential for abuse in every level of politics,” he said.
Saunderson said anyone concerned with the conduct of any mayor or councillor can file an integrity commissioner complaint through their municipality or the Ontario Ombudsman.
It wasn’t so long ago that Saunderson himself served as Collingwood’s mayor, as he sat in the seat from 2018 until 2022.
Saunderson pointed to three specific examples of times when the powers could have helped him get things done faster.
“We had the judicial inquiry. We had the COVID-19 pandemic. We had the interim control bylaw. In retrospect, there were opportunities where strong mayor powers could have been used in all three of those circumstances,” he said.
“It’s all contextual. The mayor is going to have to decide: Do I need to use those powers to improve my community and get housing built? That’s going to be up to each individual mayor,” said Saunderson.
In a previous story, Collingwood’s Mayor Yvonne Hamlin told CollingwoodToday that she doesn’t intend to use the strong mayor powers for anything today, but that could change depending on what the future brings.
