MORRISBURG – Nearly 170 more mayors will get a set of new powers from the provincial government starting May 1. However South Dundas Mayor Jason Broad is not among those receiving them.
Ontario’s Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing announced an expansion of the municipalities whose mayors will receive so-called “Strong Mayor” powers from the province on April 9.
Those powers, first granted to Toronto and Ottawa through the Stronger Mayors, Building Homes Act in 2022, allow mayors to override their council to advance provincial priorities. This includes vetoing council decisions, passing new bylaws with a fewer-than-majority support, and unilaterally choosing to appoint a chief administrative officer.
Since passed, the Strong Mayor powers have expanded to cover 45 cities in Ontario; on May 1 that will grow by 169 more municipalities – but not South Dundas.
“To preserve the balance of decision making, municipalities with less than six council members are not eligible to receive strong mayor powers,” Ministry spokesperson Alexandria Sanita explained. In SDG Counties, only North Glengarry Township qualifies with a seven person council.
Not being included on the strong mayor powers list is okay with Broad. He told The Leader that those powers would work against his philosophy as mayor.
“When I ran for mayor, I talked a lot about ‘team’ and ‘attitude and culture’,” Broad explained. “I don’t need direct unilateral power. I want to work on these things as a group, as a team; take inputs from all aspects of the community through the council team and committees of council.”
He continued that the council has been working “hard and fast” in supporting growth.
“It’s not a concern either way to have them or not.”
The ministry said that any municipality that expands to the minimum six-person council can ask for the minister to grant the strong mayor powers. Again, Broad said no thank you.
“I think council sizes should be a direct reflection of municipal population and budget dollars; the system we have today works just fine. I would not add to our council just to attain these powers,’ the mayor said.
Broad pointed to new apartments opening this year in Morrisburg (17 units) and Iroquois (24 units) along with the Merkley Oaks and Dutch Meadows projects.
“I think we’re doing quite fine in the housing area,” he said adding that there are more projects in the works. “We’re ready to build more or replace existing infrastructure. We just need more Federal and Provincial Funding envelopes.”
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