THUNDER BAY — Thunder Bay Mayor Ken Boshcoff could be in line to join dozens of his big-city colleagues in receiving enhanced ‘strong mayor’ powers from the province.
The possibility comes as the city weighs making a “housing pledge” the province has suggested is a prerequisite to receive those powers, with city council expected to vote on a proposed pledge in the fall.
The powers are expansive on paper, though mayors including Boshcoff have suggested they’ll be rarely used, and some have promised not to use them at all.
The strong mayor regulations would allow Boshcoff to hire and fire the city manager and some department heads, reorganize city departments, propose the city budget subject to council amendments, create committees, and appoint committee chairs.
The powers also allow mayors to pass bylaws with minority support at council in some cases, and to veto certain bylaws, where they believe those issues involve provincial priorities like housing.
In an interview, Boshcoff suggested making a housing pledge is important for the city’s relations with the provincial government.
“It’s something I would put as a first-level range of urgency that we get this done… so that the ministers know we’re on board with provincial priorities — which happen to dovetail with our needs as a community,” he said.
“The quicker we can get the pledge signed, the better… and the more focus we will have when we’re asking for other provincial support.”
While some have criticized the strong mayor powers as anti-democratic, Boshcoff said they would in fact help “rebalance” the relationship between council and city administration.
“I see over the time since I’ve been [out of office] a huge shift to more power in the public service, and less in the council,” he said. “So I think that would provide more responsibility for council and more justification for councillors doing their homework and getting the job done.”
In June, Thunder Bay was conspicuously left off a list of 26 municipalities in line to receive strong mayor powers, joining Toronto and Ottawa.
At the time, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Steve Clark suggested that was because Thunder Bay had not submitted a housing pledge like those other communities.
City officials, however, say the province didn’t reach out to request a pledge until June, months after asking 29 other “large and fast-growing” cities to do so.
Thunder Bay was one of just three Ontario municipalities of over 100,000 people the province did not designate with expanded mayoral powers, along with Chatham-Kent and Sudbury.
Now, however, a pledge is in the works for Thunder Bay, though whether to approve it will be up to city council.
The pledges are meant to help achieve the Ford government's goal of building 1.5 million new homes by 2031 — a target it is not currently on track to achieve, even with housing starts growing last year.
Unlike the 26 communities initially asked to submit a pledge, the province did not assign Thunder Bay a target for new home builds in its pledge, said city manager Norm Gale.
“We were not assigned a target, and we’re unsure as to what the implications of submitting a pledge might be downstream,” he said.
Gale said it's his understanding the pledge is “not required,” calling it a decision of council, but the province has requested it be submitted by Dec. 15.
He suggested the pledge may serve more as a reflection of the city’s existing efforts on housing than an expansion, after recent steps like revamping the city's zoning bylaw, launching a housing needs study, and presenting an ambitious application for federal housing funds.
“The city has been working for some time on housing issues,” Gale said. “We were [already] doing a housing study, we just presented information on Canada’s housing accelerator grant funding.”
Gale declined to predict whether housing starts will increase in Thunder Bay, but said the city has ensured there is sufficient land available for development.
“Certainly there is housing pressure in our city… so more housing would be a good thing to help with the market,” he said. “But the city is not a developer, the city does not build the houses.”
“What the city does is… ensure there’s sufficient lots for housing — and in my view, we’ve done that.”
Boshcoff appeared to disagree, saying the city needs to do more to open up development, including extending city services like water and sewer lines for new subdivisions.
“Right now, we’ve got the site plans, but no infrastructure,” he said. “That’s a tipping point. And the infrastructure is a city responsibility. We’ve got lots of builders with lots of plans. It’s up to the city to pull the trigger and execute.”
“We have to make it easier for people who want to invest their money. Once we do that and clear the roadblocks, I believe we could actually see the reality of this mining boom come to fruition.”
Boshcoff suggested it would be difficult to reach the city’s housing goals through urban infill without approving new subdivisions on the fringes of existing development.
“If you want to try to do it through infill, you actually need to level blocks of land and put in multi-residential complexes,” he said. “Thunder Bay is well known for single and double family housing, and that’s what most people want.”
“That’s why our neighbours in Shuniah and Oliver-Paipoonge are having an enormous boom of very nicely-built homes on beautiful properties. Could those properties be in Thunder Bay? I’d say 90 per cent of them could be here, if we had had serviced land available.”
The province has not confirmed directly to Thunder Bay that a housing pledge will result in strong mayor powers, but Gale noted “the minister has said those that submit pledges will receive strong mayor powers.”
Boshcoff suggested he could seek the powers on his own, even if council were to reject the pledge.
“The strong mayor powers could be applied simply by asking for them, but the pledge would be a sign of good intent,” he said. “Yes, I’ve been encouraged to just apply on my own, but I’d like to have the backing of council as opposed to presenting it as some kind of adversarial versus administration.”
