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Premier Doug Ford’s sweeping expansion of strong mayor powers to nearly half of the Ontario’s municipalities was met with “predominantly negative” feedback during consultations, with respondents calling the system “unnecessary” and “undemocratic,” documents obtained by CBC News reveal.
The summary of the consultations by Ontario civil servants was obtained through a freedom of information request. They show that during an eight-day period less than a month before the change came into force, the government received 769 responses to a regulatory registry posting about the strong mayor power expansion.
“The tone of the responses was predominantly negative with comments including opinions that the powers are unnecessary, undemocratic, and inappropriate for small municipalities,” the civil servants said.
On May 1, 2025, Ontario moved ahead with the expansion, granting the mayors of 170 communities across the province strong mayor powers. The powers give mayors control over budgets and appointments, the ability to hire and fire some city staff, vetoes over some council votes and the ability to pass some bylaws with support of only a third of council.
Ontario is proposing to expand strong mayor powers to the heads of council in 169 additional municipalities starting in May to help ensure they have the tools needed to reduce obstacles to new housing and infrastructure developments.
Ministry knew of public concerns: documents
The province first introduced the powers in 2022 but at the time, only granted them to the mayors of Toronto and Ottawa. The following year, it granted them to 26 more communities. The powers have been expanded to 216 municipalities.
“The Ministry has received, and is aware from media coverage, public concerns with the most recent expansion, including calls for municipalities to be able to opt out of the framework,” the civil servants said in the consultations summary.
Ford initially said he introduced the powers to help address the province’s housing crisis and get new homes built. The province has struggled to hit its housing target of building 1.5 million homes by 2031.
But the powers have sparked controversy for their use in other ways since their creation, such as to push through decisions or key personal changes without a majority vote of elected councils. Just before the expansion, provincial tracking showed less than half of strong mayors in Ontario were using the powers.
‘Government doesn’t seem to be listening’: NDP critic
Opposition critics are questioning why the province pushed ahead with the wide expansion of the powers in the face of clear opposition.
NDP municipal affairs critic Jeff Burch said the documents make it clear the government heard the strong mayor powers were undemocratic, but wasn’t interested in the feedback.
“It’s distressing that the government doesn’t seem to be listening to anyone, and it’s just moving ahead with its agenda,” he said.
Burch said the powers have failed to produce the housing needed for Ontarians, and the government should be re-assessing, not expanding them.
“This is another example of something the government should be backtracking on,” he said. “When you make a mistake … there’s nothing wrong with backtracking on legislation or fine-tuning it.”
Liberal municipal affairs critic Stephen Blais said the strong mayor framework hasn’t helped the province build more housing. But it has sowed the seeds of division on a number of municipal councils, he said.
“I think the experiment hasn’t really worked the way the province wanted to,” he said. “We could have certainly given it more time to see if trends change before we expanded it the way that the government did.”
Councils should have ‘opt out’ on powers: Schreiner
Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner said some mayors are opting not to use the powers or even delegating some of the authority they are granted to staff. The province should allow communities to opt out of the strong mayor framework, he said.
“So many municipalities do not want these powers, because they know they’re divisive, they know they’re anti-democratic and they’ve actually made the housing crisis worse,” he said.
York University public policy professor Zac Spicer said strong mayor powers have stoked conflict in some small municipalities.
Mayors and councillors are part-time roles in many places in Ontario, and the temptation to use the powers to fundamentally remake a municipality’s civil service or override fellow councilors and act like council’s “CEO” has led to division, he said.
“Councillors in Toronto, they can leave a council meeting and they can walk away, and they don’t have to see that person until the next council meeting,” he said. “Not in a town of 1,000 people. You will see that person the next day at the grocery store.”
A spokesperson for Municipal Affairs Minister Rob Flack said mayors in Ajax, Brampton and St. Catharines have used the strong mayor system to help build housing.
“Our government continues to work together with our municipal partners, giving them the tools they need, to streamline local government and reduce procedural obstacles that get in the way of building new housing, and critical infrastructure,” Daniel Strauss said in a statement.
