Ontario’s strong mayor power grab goes too far

New powers that allow Ontario mayors to override council and make decisions behind closed doors are an erosion of local democracy

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Want more power in your town? In Ontario, all you have to do is become mayor.

The Ford government has handed out “strong mayor” powers like Halloween candy. Even sleepy towns like Springwater, population 22,000, now have mayors who can override council votes, veto decisions and push through bylaws with just a third of council’s support. No constitutional reform. No real public debate. Just a heavy-handed shift in how local government works.

These powers let mayors bypass the usual democratic process, passing bylaws without majority support, overturning council decisions and directly managing senior city staff. It’s a big change from how Canadian cities usually function, where mayors have just one vote, like any other councillor.

But here’s the catch: most Canadian cities don’t need a strong mayor. They need stronger local democracy.

And I say that with experience. I’ve covered municipal politics for decades, and I’ve worked in economic development too. I’ve seen how Canada’s cities function, and how they don’t.

That dysfunction is rooted in how little power our cities actually have. Unlike cities in the United States or the United Kingdom, Canadian cities have almost no constitutional standing. They exist at the whim of the provinces. That makes them uniquely vulnerable to top-down experiments, like Ontario’s strong mayor scheme.

U.S. cities often have their own constitutions. In the U.K., cities report directly to a central government. But in Canada, there’s no real autonomy. A city like Toronto, home to more people than several provinces combined, can’t raise its own taxes or make key decisions without provincial permission.

It wasn’t always like this. In 2007, Ontario passed the City of Toronto Act, giving the city a unique set of powers that almost resembled provincial autonomy.

The act recognized that Toronto, given its size and complexity, needed more authority to govern itself. It was a sensible, tailored approach to modern urban governance.

That was then. But today, Ford’s expansion of strong mayor powers to any Ontario municipality, no matter how small or urban, makes no sense at all.

The province says this will help fast-track housing and infrastructure decisions, but there’s little evidence these powers are being used for that, especially in smaller communities.

Even some mayors agree. Councils in Kingston and Guelph have pushed back. They’d rather rely on consensus and community input than give one person the ability to steamroll local decisions. It turns out democracy, even the slow, messy kind, is still popular.

Springwater is the perfect example of how badly this can go. The mayor used new powers to negotiate away part of the township in a deal with neighbouring Barrie, without any public input.

It’s a troubling example of how these new powers can be used without transparency or accountability.

Barrie claims it needs land to grow, but hasn’t used up what it already has. Springwater residents are left wondering who’s really running the show, and why no one asked them.

And it sets a precedent: if one province can centralize power in every mayor’s office, others might follow, and your community could lose its voice in the process.

No political system is perfect. But when it comes to cities, Canada does better when decision-making is shared, not centralized. Our mayors don’t need more muscle. Our councils need more respect and maybe more tools to serve growing populations.

Other provinces should think twice before following Ontario’s lead. Strong mayor powers may look bold on paper. But in practice, they’re undemocratic, unnecessary and, in the wrong hands, deeply unwise.

Dale Johnson is an award-winning author, broadcaster and journalist who has worked in TV, radio, print and online.