FORT FRANCES — Another Northwestern Ontario municipality has formally opposed the Ford government unilaterally granting it strong mayor powers.
At its Monday meeting, Fort Frances town council unilaterally supported a motion that opposed their imposition and “requests immediate removal from the list of designated municipalities” that received them on May 1. The vote to support that opposition to those powers included mayor Andrew Hallikas.
“The council is unanimous in their opinion that strong mayor powers are unneeded and they are a bit of an affront to democracy,” Hallikas said in an interview with Newswatch, adding to the chorus of municipal leaders who are largely eschewing them.
“Our council works really well together in a collegial and cooperative manner, and so, as the resolution stated, we'd like to give them back to the province if we can, but we can't because they're mandated.”
Hallikas has previously told Newswatch he’s already delegated the powers that he can back to either senior municipal staff or council as a whole and will continue to do so, effectively keeping how council operates as status quo.
Strong mayor powers, among other things, give mayors the authority to unilaterally hire and fire a municipality’s CAO or city manager and some other senior staff, to create council committees, appoint their leadership and assign their duties, propose municipal budgets, and veto certain bylaws if the mayor feels they go against “provincial priorities.”
Earlier this year, the town received correspondence from Paula Banks, a councillor for the Township of Rideau Lakes in southeastern Ontario, who is leading province-wide advocacy efforts opposing strong mayor powers. At its June 23 meeting, Fort Frances council directed its city staff to formally draft a motion in support of that advocacy and opposing the unilateral granting of expanded mayoral authority to the town.
The motion passed unanimously on Monday after it was pushed to council’s August meeting because of a packed agenda in July.
Kenora council passed a virtually identical motion back in June. In that case, however, mayor Andrew Poirier voted against it but he has formally delegated CAO employment powers back to council and says he would only use other strong mayor powers if they helped with housing and infrastructure development.
When it comes to the housing file, Hallikas said he understands where the province is coming from in terms of wanting more units built quickly but “I just don't think this is the way to go about it, especially for small rural communities.”
“If the province wants to assist us with our housing, which we're working very hard on, they could help us with additional financial aid,” he said. “That would really help us a lot.”
On the local housing front, Hallikas said the municipality has effectively created a subdivision with roughly 30 serviced lots and is working to streamline the sale of them to developers.
“That's the type of thing that many small municipalities do,” he said. “We try to be as efficient as we can.”
