THUNDER BAY — The city's next municipal election could be very different from the last one and residents will soon have a chance to weigh in on how—and whether—things will change. A major transformation is being proposed, with changes to the number of councillors, ward boundaries, and whether there will be wards at all.
On Oct. 7, the city will launch a survey asking residents about the proposals.
“Today, we talked about the survey that will be going out to the community for the first three weeks of October, which is quite exciting,” said Rebecca Johnson, chair of the council composition committee.
“It's really important to have people fill in a survey so that we can find out what they want.”
The committee is considering two options.
The first is a hybrid system with eight ward councillors and two at-large councillors, for a total of 10. The number of wards in the city would be reduced from the current seven to four larger wards with roughly equal populations, each stretching from the waterfront to the rural parts of the city.
The other option would be to get rid of wards entirely and move to an all at-large system, also with 10 councillors.
Johnson pointed out these are not recommendations the committee is presenting to council and could still change based on pubic input. However, the two options are based on the data they have collected during the phase one process.
Krista Power, Director of Legislative Services, provided Newswatch with an overview of how the committee settled on these two options.
“What the committee actually tasked administration to do was to look at mapping and we looked at a tenor system, an eight-ward system, a seven-ward system and a five-ward system, “Power said.
“They gave us the task of looking at, first of all, population equity. So trying to make sure any ward system was well balanced by population also making sure that it was within geographic boundaries.”
She stated that the data they received in phase one of the consultations showed that redistributing the wards into eight or seven wards was what the public wanted.
Through the phase one review, the committee also found that the public wanted an overall average of 8.6 available council seats, plus one for the mayor, in the 2026 municipal election.
But, when weighted against the workload for councillors and comparable data from other municipalities, the committee settled on 10.
“We talked about that a fair amount at other meetings and felt that we were really comfortable by reducing it by two and that the community would be acceptable to that,” Johnson said.
“There is no doubt in my mind, I can only speak for my own self, is the fact that the community want this council reduced.”
When the phase two survey comes out on Monday, it will ask members of the public to consider the two options and the number of seats the committee has chosen.
“The committee is looking at both of those options equally and now looking to see what the public thinks of both of those options,” said Power.
Throughout October and into November, the committee and city councillors will be also offering the public an opportunity to voice their opinions in-person at various ward meetings.
“It will really basically be asking people what they want to have from the two options that we're providing for them,” said Johnson.
The committee will also host several pop-up locations at the Thunder Bay Public Library, The Thunder Bay Country Market and at a Thunderwolves game.
All dates and times can be found on the City of Thunder Bay municipal website.
