Editorial – Ford expands control over councils

The Ontario government introduced legislation April 2, which will further blur the lines between provincial and municipal governance in areas of the province. The Better Regional Governance Act, if passed, will restructure the upper-tier municipal councils of a number of municipalities, while also appointing a provincial chair to each council.

The legislation will shrink the size of Niagara Region Council and Simcoe County Council. It will also allow the province to appoint the head of council for those two councils, and six more (Durham, Halton, Muskoka, Peel, Waterloo, and York). Those appointments will not be people already elected to council, but will be of the province’s choosing and unelected. And those new chairs will receive “strong chair” powers which mirror the “strong mayor” powers any municipal council of six or more members received last year. Those powers may be used to appoint a new Chief Administrative Officer, hire certain department heads, reorganize or restructure municipal administration, and present a budget. The head of council can also veto part or all of a bylaw if they believe it interferes with provincial priorities.

Changing the size of two councils makes sense as Simcoe requested it already, and Niagara has a bloated council larger than Toronto. But provincially appointing the head of council is antidemocratic. Giving those political appointments the power to override and veto democratically elected council members is egregious.

Government appointments are largely political patronage. Officials can deny it all they wish, but 200-plus years of politics in Canada shows overwhelmingly that the party in power appoints its friends to places of privilege. The plum political posting of the unelected head of a municipal council with the ability to override its council is borderline authoritarian. It is a recipe for graft and abuse of power. It will mean that the head of council for eight of the largest non-city municipal bodies, over 6.2 million residents, will be a nonelected appointment as their leader. Roughly two out of every five Ontarians.

The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing confirmed to The Leader that there are no plans to implement these changes to the other 22 regions or counties in Ontario including SDG Counties. Not having plans has never stopped Premier Doug Ford from proceeding with his ideas, which is why strong mayor powers went from just a few big municipalities to across the province.

Municipal councils are elected by residents of those municipalities, representing local issues and ideals. The province creating plum patronage appointments to stick their thumb on municipal governance is antidemocratic and wrong.