Opinion | ‘Strong Mayor’ legislation weak law that won’t solve city’s problems

The Ford government has introduced legislation that would give “strong mayor” powers to — initially — the mayors of Toronto and Ottawa. This out-of-the-blue announcement, was warmly received by Mayor John Tory of Toronto, and perhaps less warmly by Mayor Jim Watson of Ottawa.

This legislation is unprecedented and marks a huge shift in governance of Ontario’s municipalities. Urban municipalities are governed by democratically elected city councils. The decisions of civic governments have been theresponsibility of those elected councils — not the singular responsibility of one member. While democracy isn’t always perfect, citizens of urban municipalities have generally been satisfied with their form of representative government.

And at a more fundamental level, how does the “strong mayor” address the key problem facing the City of Toronto — its increasing financial problems? This year the fiscal gap is in the order of $800 million; next year it’s much larger, partly due to the province amending the Development Charges legislation and the Planning Act.

While there are policy/political issues with this legislation, it also raises an underrecognized and fundamental municipal governance issue — how council relates to the public service.

Source: Law Daily Report (lawdailyreport.net)

Financial problems that 12 years of Rob Ford and John Tory made much, much worse with their refusal to raise revenues. One difference now is that Tory won't be able to blame others so easily for his bad decisions, though he still will and his gullible supporters will believe him.

So Toronto & Ottawa become less democratic, with greater centralization of power.

How about we seize bank accounts for those not fully vaxxed & boosted and distribute to black and brown folks? Poverty solved 😏

get the bakers out of bed with real estate brokers and agents.

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