The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Who’s Really in Charge of Ontario’s Cities?

Episode Date: April 28, 2026

What does Ontario’s Better Regional Governance Act, 2026 actually change, and who ends up with more power at the local level? TVO Today columnist and #onpoli cohost John Michael McGrath breaks down what’s in the legislation and what it is meant to fix. We then turn to the government’s claim that strong mayor powers are speeding up housing construction, examining what the evidence shows so far and whether it has come with democratic tradeoffs. Joining the conversation are David Arbuckle of the Association of Municipal Managers, Clerks and Treasurers of Ontario, Lindsay Jones of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, and Natasha Salonen, mayor of the Township of Wilmot.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi, I'm Nam Kiwanuka, host and producer of mistreated, a podcast on women's health. There just hasn't been a lot of money put into researching women's health issues. If women are in pain, it's hysteria, it's an emotional issue. And this is what you see consistently. Women's health is not taken seriously. How did we get here? Find us wherever you get your podcasts, and be sure to check out the video version of the show on the TVO Today YouTube channel.

Hope to see you then. There's a big change. coming to democracy in Ontario. Remember strong mayor powers? While the province is expanding the concept, as of April 26th, it will now be able to appoint regional chairs, and they'll have significant powers.

Here's the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Rob Flack. Chairs will be equipped with strong chair powers to help them deliver on their regional mandates. The government says this will help get shovels in the ground for new housing and build infrastructure, and they say there's already proof this approach works. These powers will mirror strong mayor powers which have been delivered with much success throughout the province. Those powers have been in place since 2022 and applied to more than 200 mayors.

They can decide appointments, hire and fire city staff, veto some votes, pass certain bylaws with only a third of council, and more. But not everyone's in favor of them, with the NDP and Greens calling them undemocratic. So do strong mayor powers deliver results? and how will strong chair powers work? We dig into the possible risks and benefits and what this all means for democracy in Ontario. Welcome to the rundale. The government's Better Regional Governance Act 2026

will shake up how decisions are made in Ontario and who makes them. So what's in it and what is it supposed to accomplish? John Michael McGrath is a calmness for TVO today and co-host of the OnPoly Podcast. and he joins us in studio. How are you doing, sir? Good, how are you doing?

I'm doing well. Let's talk about Bill 100. How will the Regional Governance Act change the way some jurisdictions will govern in Ontario? Right, so this is specifically looking at reforming the regional municipal governments in Ontario, most of which, all of which are in southern Ontario.

And specifically, these are the regional governments that are mostly in what we would call the Greater Golden Horse Shoes. So municipalities around Toronto, but into Niagara region as well, up to Simco, Can. And these are municipalities where there is one big overarching level of municipal government that also makes decisions for many smaller, lower level municipal governments.

And two big changes that this bill does, well, this bill and previous bills do, is it will now make the regional chairs of these municipal councils appointed as opposed to elected either directly or indirectly. So they will be appointed from Queens Park, from the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. And separately, the regional chair will also be given powers analogous to the strong mayor powers

that mayors of other municipalities like Ottawa and Toronto and other municipalities have received. And then on top of that, there's also some changes to the size of the regional councils in both Simcoe and Niagara. Okay. I want to get to that

at the latter point of the sort of what those powers might mean, but should get a point of clarification here. In terms of the appointments themselves, some regions actually do appoint, not from Queens Park, but they do a point within the region where some are elected during municipal elections, correct? Right. So there's been a mix of methods. Back in 2018, when the Ford Tories were first elected, the previous liberal government

had just brought in a law saying that for that 2018 municipal election, All regional chairs would be directly elected by voters. The Ford government, one of their first acts was to repeal that. Since then, some have been elected directly. Some have been elected by the regional councils themselves. So you might be a local mayor who gets elected chair famously. Jim Bradley, former MPP and longtime St. Catherine's NPP was elected chair of Niagara region. All right.

Okay. So what do strong powers mean for these regional? chairs. So it's, let me just start with the powers themselves, just people might need a refresher. It will allow the head of council, and that's the language in the law, it'll allow the head of council to move forward certain measures that meet provincial priorities. So we think about building transit more quickly or building more housing, anything that intersects with those areas and other provincial priorities. they can move measures like that forward

without a support of the majority of counsel. They can also veto measures, and those vetoes can only be overridden with a super majority of council. So this is already, this has been controversial in some cities because it's not how we have traditionally done municipal democracy in Ontario, and so it's a change,

and that's been controversial. But at least in those cases, until now, those powers were held by elected mayors. This new bill gives those same powers to unelected, appointed regional chairs. This is another, I think, likely to be controversial element of this, where, you know, some of the people who have been appointed by the current PC government, you know, can go back to the recent chair of Niagara region, Bob Gale, who was a former PC candidate. He had a substantial career in local politics. I don't want to deny that he had a substantial resume there, but he was, I think it's uncontroversial to say that he was appointed because he was a

former progressive conservative candidate at the provincial level. Voters had had an opportunity to vote for him at the provincial level. They reelected a new Democrat in the writing he contested instead, and then he was made this regional chair. You know, so you, you, you, you very well could see a position after this bill becomes law where, you know, this kind of pattern could repeat where somebody who the voters had in fact rejected is now given powers superior to those of elected officials. All right, well, let's pick up on that. There's obviously some argument that this isn't necessarily democratic.

You share that view in your latest column on TVO.org. Why wouldn't it be walk us through a little bit of some of the stuff that you had mentioned, but there's more to that? Yeah, so it is one thing to say that we are giving these powers to elected mayors. And whether you necessarily agree with this argument, let me sort of give the strong version, I think, of this argument, which is that, you know, let's take a city like Toronto, right? The city of Toronto has both a mayor and it has councils elected, counselors elected at the ward level. And the argument to give strong mayor powers to a mayor like Olivia Chow or Mark Succliffe in Ottawa is pretty simple. These are the only people. on the entire council who are elected by the city as a whole. And they have a mandate there to make policy for the city as a whole. Again, you don't have to agree with that argument, but I think it is at least a fair argument,

a defensible argument that people could, you know, genuinely debate in a democratic context. That argument disappears if the position is now appointed from Queens Park. It's not really tenable. And it really does undermine the whole idea, of local democracy in the first place. If we are just going to dictate policy from Queens Park in a super sort of micromanagerial way

where it's not just Queens Park spelling out the sort of the broad rules of the game and general priorities, but saying to municipalities, not only do you have to do this, but we are going to appoint somebody to make sure you do, then it really raises the question of why do we even have local democracy in the first place?

All right. Well, Ontarians will have their say because municipal elections are going to be happening later this year. However, municipal elections don't tend to do well. I think the last numbers, I think we're... Famously low turnout, yeah. About 30% or so. Yes. Will Ontarians care about this change to local government?

It's possible that they won't in time, right? You know, before those municipal elections, the bill is going to... It's very likely to pass. It's currently at the committee stage at Queens Park. I have not seen some great groundswell of opposition coming out of the woodworks here. if people do not discover outrage before the October elections, though, what I would say is eventually these regional chairs are going to have to start making decisions. And the reason you make these kinds of changes, the appointments, the super mayor powers,

is for them to make contentious choices, contentious decisions that the local elected officials would not necessarily make of their own accord. when that starts happening, I don't know which region it will happen in first, but I'm pretty certain it will happen sometime in the next four years. When that starts happening, people are going to notice, right? They are going to suddenly discover that somebody appointed from Queens Park is making a decision contrary to the local counselors and mayors that they voted for. And that's probably going to be too late in terms of affecting the legal change, but it will not be too late in terms of causing a controversy

that Queen's Park will have to respond to. A story that we will continue to follow. I feel like you planted the seeds for potentially your next visit on the show. Of course, we'll have you for that time. It's always planting seats. There we go. John Michael, always pleasure. Thank you so much. The government

says strong mayor powers have been paying off in new housing. We look at what the record says and whether there have been tradeoffs for democracy. David Arbuckle is the executive director of the Association of Municipal Managers, Clerks and Treasurers of Ontario. Lindsay Jones is the Executive Director of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario.

Natasha Salinen is the mayor of the Township of Wilmot. Great to have both of you in studio and great to have Natasha on the line. Lindsay, I'm going to start with you. Help us understand. What issues were Strong Mayor Powers designed to solve? Well, Strong Mayor Powers were a way for municipalities to be able to move forward. more quickly on issues, particularly of provincial priority. It really came into being when the province was moving forward quickly with housing targets.

Okay. Now let's talk about those housing projects and development. Since housing was the priority, I think it was 1.5 million homes and starts 2031. Where have we seen? Have we been effective in that, in hitting those numbers? Well, certainly the numbers that are bearing out is that we haven't been effective province-wide. If we're speaking to the issue related to strong mayor powers, you know, there are examples where mayors have used the powers in order to maybe move a project or two forward in relation to housing. However, we've also seen mayors who have made decisions that have stopped housing from moving forward. So I think overall, as an association,

our issue has been that the powers that have been brought forward, there's no evidence to support that they're making any difference as it makes in relation to the actual construction of housing. Give me an example. What do you mean by stopping? Yeah, well, there's a very good example recently from Markham in relation to Mayor Scarpiti, who vetoed a decision from counsel related to fourplexes as an example. So as a right, municipalities are owners of those properties, being able to put four units instead of one unit on those properties that would increase density for a number of reasons, which Mayor Scarpiti indicated in a right.

relation to the pressure that it puts on housing, or on the infrastructure, on traffic, on other things as well, Mayor of Capiti decided that that was not a good initiative to move forward with. So there have been a number of examples like that that I don't think is entirely what the province had intended in relation to giving mayor powers in order to move housing forward. Natasha, let's pick up on that. Has it been effective enough for the purposes of housing when we talk about strong mayor powers? I think some great points of all. been made. Some cases, we have absolutely seen that. Others, not so much. But I would also point to Lindsay's kind of start off as to why these powers were brought forward. Of course,

publicly, a lot of it had to do with housing. But if you actually read the legislation, it gives a lot of other tools for other decision-making to be sped up. And certainly in my case in using them, I've used them to help bring more information forward for my councils for decision-making, including I brought in KPMG to help do our budget when we were going through some credibility issues with our finances. And it really gave my community the ability to better understand our finances. So again, I'd say the tool isn't only for housing when you read the legislation. I'm just curious, outside of those two examples that you have listed, have you used those powers at all outside of that? So I did also use the powers pretty soon after,

I got them, my municipality was going through a lot of leadership and stability. We'd had an acting CAO for almost a year by the time that I got strong mayor powers, and it was due to a stalemate amongst my council as to how to proceed forward. And we are an even-numbered council, so it was three-three. So I did use them to hire some support and headhunters to help us come in, get that process moving, which ultimately resulted in my council unanimously agreeing to bring on our current CAO. All right. So Natasha is one example

of many mayors in this province that have the powers. Lindsay, a recent Toronto Star analysis reported a huge variation and how frequently the 200-plus mayors are using the powers. Why might a mayor be reluctant to use them? Well, particularly when they were brought in,

we heard from a lot of our members that they were not really keen to use them. And in part because when they were elected, these were not powers that were, were on the table. So a lot of mayors felt that it wouldn't necessarily be consistent with the mandate that they were given from the electorate. We've seen this evolve, I think, over the past few years. Mayors are using them pretty strategically in targeted ways. A lot of mayors, though, are very mindful of the dynamics that this creates with the rest of their council,

as well as staff. Natasha, have you been reluctant to use those powers? I would say I see them as another set of tools in my toolbox. I'm certainly not jumping to want to use them, but every time I have used them, have been in step with staff because I do recognize it actually, in some cases, removes autonomy from staff.

So that's how I've chosen to apply them, as well as, like I said, really utilizing them to bring forward better information for my council to make the ultimate decision. Because at the end of the day, all of council was elected to support our community, not just myself. So that's how I've chosen to use them. And we'll continue if it's the right tool to use, then I will. But it's not the only tool in my toolbox either. David, you were quoted as saying that the strong mayor system has created a chill amongst municipal workers. Help me understand this.

Yeah. So just give you some context. So we are Ontario's largest volunteer association for municipal staff. CIOs, clerks, treasures make up the main body of our overall membership. And we've been highlighting really from the start that our major concern is that it's going to create some challenges and some blurring of the lines as it relates to the politics and the administration. Because traditionally, council city manager model, council makes policy decisions. Those policy decisions go down to the city manager. They make decisions or they make decisions in relation to implementation of those policies.

That has been blurred in most strong mayor communities. So now you have mayors that have the opportunity to bring mayoral decisions, but also mayoral directives. So they may not ultimately have to, the legislation is pretty clear as it relates to mayoral decisions. You have to have a website that indicates what mayoral decisions have been made. Mayoral directives are not as clearly defined within the legislation. So in the research that we've done with the 46 municipalities that have received the strong mayor powers, is that there is some real challenges

in relation to those mayoral directives. I had one of our clerk member staff said, I would have a full-time job if I had to dictate how many mayor directors my mayor has given to our staff in relation to the work that they've had to accomplish. So that's where we flagged really early on that not only from a political administrative divide perspective, but also the operational and the operational and the sometimes the confusion in relation to who's in charge in that municipality.

Whose direction am I following? Am I following the CIOs? Am I following the mayors? Am I following councils? It really has created a bit of a muddy, muddy situation. And that chill I spoke to is in relation to sometimes staff may not want to bring a decision forward. Staff are always in a position to bring forward stuff that is evidence-based, based on fact, based on policy.

But ultimately, there may be a bit of a chill in that space if they are not able to bring something that they think is going to be politically saleable, and if a mayor has an ability to remove that individual from that position, then they are less likely to bring forward necessarily good policy decisions to the council and to the mayor. Yeah, Lindsay.

I was going to say, so AMO, of course, has had to balance a lot of different competing perspectives in some of the work and the positions that we've taken around strong mayor powers because, of course, we represent both mayors and councillors, the councils and the municipal governments as a whole. But one definite clear line that we drew as an association with our membership was the concern that this issue creates

when the mayor can impact and make decisions about staff below the CAO level. It really is not consistent with the principles of good public administration, good corporate governance, and we're definitely seeing staff thinking twice about bringing forward that kind of advice that they would have in the past. Well, with that being said, if you were advising a mayor, what criteria would you suggest on, you know, when to use your powers? Well, I think the most successful uses that we've seen are really about trying to make that process of municipal decision making a little bit more streamlined. So, for example, mayors who are able to ask staff, like Mayor Salonan, to bring forward recommendations or information on areas that they know that there's a lot of support on council already, you can shave a couple of. months off really important decisions around housing or things like that. We've seen, I think, successful examples in London when it comes to decision-making around certain housing programs.

So where there is support and where there are these recommendations from staff, that is a pretty safe use of the powers. Mayor Sampone, let's get you in on there. I imagine you are not, you know, wielding with a heavy hand here in council at all. But have you, when we talk about this chill amongst, you know, employees of the municipalities, are you hearing that? So certainly, because I also sit around the AMO board table, we've had some really great discussions across our membership about this. But I think the other thing to recognize is that there are 444 municipalities across

Ontario, and every single one has a different internal dynamic and relationship between their council and their staff. And although on paper, yes, this is veering away from what traditional governance would be in a political science course. However, I think depending on how those relationships are formed, it might not cause the issues that are being predicted or that we're seeing in some communities. Again, in my perspective, from my municipality, certainly I can't speak on behalf of staff, but I've personally felt a change in dynamic from before having the powers and that political, or sorry, that leadership instability that I was talking about, we were really able to stabilize it within the organization and through our budget process, because again,

this was our first budget with strong mayor powers, it enabled my council to be more involved in the budget actually being developed, which already happened in some municipalities before strong mayors, but that's never happened in my community until strong mayor powers. So I think, again, we need to acknowledge that this is going to be used as a tool differently

and that all of these relationships between staff and councils vary in every municipality, as well as vary with each election, obviously as councils change, and as staff change as well. Sometimes maybe it's just not the right environment for certain people, and they'll move on to another community, both political and staff-wise as well.

All right. The mayor had mentioned traditional governance. Right. You know, one of the things that critics have been arguing is that the strong mayor powers undermine democracy by concentrating authority. And so, David, help you understand what safeguards should be implemented to help prevent that? Yeah, so through the strong mayor implementation, our members have been talking a lot about, you know, how it's ultimately impact.

them from a day-to-day perspective. So some of the recommendations we've given to the government, one is to remove the power of the mayor to hire and fire the CAO and senior management staff. As Lindsay sort of mentioned, there is some good evidence to support that type of decision-making. But we've also said, let's tighten up the legislation. Again, we've talked about provincial priorities.

The provincial priorities have never been defined by the province. So there is some ambiguity in relation to the usage of those powers. We've seen in a number of municipalities where decisions have been made where it would be a real stretch to be able to make a determination of whether or not that is helping housing in any way, shape, or form. So we've talked about tightening up the legislation. I mentioned the mayoral decisions versus mayoral directives. Some of that tightening up would be of value. Again, I don't think our members are, one of the things we've always said is our staff can implement change. So, and they're more than willing to implement change. So ultimately, if it's a

video veto that's put in, whether it's a budget process which the mayor is articulated quite well, staff can work within those boundaries. I think the mayor ultimately has to be accountable to the public in relation to those changes and those decisions that they've made related to that, but staff can implement those things. One of the things they can't implement is ultimately their job and their position. And again, we would very strongly state that there is very little evidence, if any, that supports the fact that a mayor can hire and fire a CAO or senior member staff, and that is ultimately going to have some impact on their housing target numbers. Lindsay, talk about safeguards?

Yeah, well, I mean, one of the most problematic elements of the legislation is the ability for the mayor to be able to pass decisions without the support of a majority of council. So there are instances where bylaws or elements in their budget can move forward with just the support of a third of council. And that's fundamentally undemocratic. So we've again spoken out against that element of the legislation. We've asked that that get removed. And I think that we would also urge our members.

not to take advantage of those provisions. All right. Mayor, I do want to ask, when we talk about provincial priorities, you are not only the mayor, but you also sit as a regional counselor in your area. Provincially appointed regional chairs will also have strong powers. And so I want to get all of your stances, but I'll start with the mayor. What is your stance on Bill 100 right now? Yeah, so again, I think Bill 100 is trying to solve multiple, problems across a few different regions and bringing in and giving that ability and power forward

could be tools that are well utilized. They could also cause problems. I think we'll have to kind of see how that plays out post-election. One thing I'd love to see, though, is clarity on the ballot. If it's going to actually be elected, chairs, or if it's going to be appointed, I personally would prefer clarity prior to the election because I don't think that, necessarily the electorates really paying that much attention on the day to day. I think there's some really engaged folks and there's some that might be caught off guard if the province decides to appoint after the community already elects someone in that role. All right, Lindsay, Bill 100. Yes. Well, again, there are some potential advantages and we do

agree with the need for a review and thinking about local governments. in a regular way. Where we do have some pretty serious concerns is where you'll have the combination of an appointed chair with those strong chair powers. So not only is this person not directly accountable to the electorate, but you can have situations where in fact they would be overruling members

of their regional council who are. And this, again, is fundamentally undefiating. Democratic, and we have called on the province to remove those elements from the bill. All right. Jamie, you got the last word on that. Yeah, and I would echo some of Lindsay's comments. Certainly all of the things that I mentioned previously, so the administrative burden piece, the decreased transparency in relation to decision making that's happening, the, again, the divide

or the, sorry, the blurring of the political administrative lines, those things all fall into the Bill 100, but then you add on to it someone who may not be elected, who is appointed by the province, whose only accountabilities are to the province. These are multi-billion-dollar corporations with major decisions being made in relation to infrastructure, healthcare, paramedics, all of those different services. And ultimately, you're giving powers to someone

to be able to overrule, as Lindsay Alclan and said, overrule elected individuals around that table. It really is overly concerning, but it's certainly from a staff perspective, all the same issues that we've highlighted in relation to strong mayor will also follow the strong chair. All right. We are going to have to leave it there. I know we will all have a close eye on how this all plays out.

Natasha, David, Lindsay, really appreciate your time. Thank you so much. Thank you. I'm Jan. Thanks for watching The Rundown. What do you want to know more about? Email us at rundown at tvo.org or reach out to me on social media. as always, let us know what you think. Until then, I will see you tomorrow. If you're enjoying this series, please consider supporting TVO with a donation to make more

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