TORONTO — Thunder Bay is one of three communities in Ontario’s Big City Mayor’s group left off the list of cities getting strong mayor powers.
The lack of a housing strategy submission was cited on Friday for the omission of Thunder Bay, Chatham-Kent and Sudbury, though Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing told media on Friday that they will have an opportunity to gain the strong mayor designation if they comply.
“It’s pretty simple, we extended strong mayor powers to every community that enacted a housing pledge,” Clark said.
“But we’re certainly giving them and other municipalities the opportunity.”
Strong mayor powers help heads of council cut out red tape and speed up development, a key part of the Ford government’s decision to hand them out to 26 new communities in 2023, after last year enacting the legislation in Toronto and Ottawa.
In addition to housing, strong mayor powers give the mayor the ability to appoint a municipality’s chief administrative officer, hire certain department heads, reorganize departments, create committees of council, including assigning functions and appointing chairs, proposing the municipal budget — subject to council amendments — and vetoing certain bylaws, if the mayor believes they interfere with a provincial priority.
Thunder Bay Mayor Ken Boshcoff said he expects the city will follow suit and submit a housing pledge.
"We already have all our ducks in a row," he said in an afternoon interview. "This is a formality, as opposed to any kind of processing situation. I would think, from an administrative standpoint, it's quite feasible. We have the plans. We have the lots. We're able to show that quite easily."
“Ontario's Big City Mayors back the province’s goal of building 1.5 million homes by 2031, and all of our members have accepted their housing pledge in support of that target," said Marianne Meed Ward, Chair of OBCM and Mayor of Burlington.
“Different communities require different tools and approaches to address local housing needs, and strong mayor powers are one such tool that can help mayors and municipalities meet their housing targets. We’re committed to continue working with the province to build the homes our residents need.”
More than 96,000 housing starts were achieved in Ontario last year, the most since 1988. The 28 communities approved for strong mayor powers have pledged to build 1,217,000 units by 2031, 81 per cent of the 1.5-million goal.
"It's a big promise," he said. "It means municipalities have to show that their planning and their services are able to absorb the growing population. We can show that."
Boshcoff indicated that he would be in favor of having the strong mayors power.
"Anything that will help expedite matters is probably a good thing in the right hands," he said, adding that he expected they would only be used rarely, giving an example of ensuring site plan agreements could be accelerated.
With files from Matt Vis
