Mayors and City Performance: Thunder Bay, 2000 to 2025

  

As we head towards the October 26^th municipal election, a retrospective on what has come to pass is always of benefit.  The next mayor and council will take Thunder Bay into the next quarter of the 21^st century so it is instructive to review some of what has transpired during the first quarter.  Mayors and councils have little control over the ebbs and flows of the provincial, national and global business cycles and their immediate impact on the city.  They also have not as much control as you might think over municipal policy given their part-time approach to the job, an established municipal bureaucracy, and provincial regulations and oversight. 

The key role of elected municipal officials is to provide assent and legitimization for decisions as well as democratic accountability to the electorate for taxes and expenditures that to a large extent are driven by rules and processes outside their immediate control.  They are in essence the shield that deflects attention away from the municipal and provincial bureaucrats who in effect actually govern municipalities.  While it is true that particularly persistent, driven and well-informed mayors and councillors can make a difference, for the most part, it is an exhausting process given they are caught between a demanding public and a faceless monolithic set of bureaucratic overlords.

Nevertheless, the mayor and council are the face of public accountability in our system of municipal governance and so their elected terms can be the basis for comparisons.  The following figures compare the period of mayors (and by extension their councils) of Thunder Bay from 2000 to 2025.  The comparators are three annual municipal indicators and two annual economic indicators.  The three municipal indicators are taken from data provided by the annual provincial Financial Information Returns (FIR) filed by each municipality.  These are: total own-purpose taxation revenue (which includes both residential and commercial tax revenues), per household total own-purpose taxation revenue and the size of the municipal workforce.  The two economic indicators are the total value of building permits issued (from FIR) and total employment (Statistics Canada). 

Where necessary, some data from the City of Thunder Bay budgets was also used.  It should be noted that the data for the start and end years is sometimes incomplete and in those cases estimated using a simple regression over the 2000 to 2024 period to obtain the 1999 and 2025 figures.  As well, these indicators focus on fiscal and economic indicators. Left out are social measures such as crime rates or rates of homelessness. Suffice it to say that over the entire 2000 to 2025 period, crime rates in Thunder Bay declined from 2000 to about 2015 but have since seen an uptick.  As for homelessness, that has definitely gotten worse over time and particularly since the pandemic.  Both of these trends in Thunder Bay are reflective of what has transpired in other Ontario cities.

Over the 2000 to 2025 period, there are five mayoral terms.  Ken Boshcoff (2000 to 2003 though the term starts in 1999), Lynn Peterson (2003 to 2010), Keith Hobbs (2010 to 2018), Bill Mauro (2018 to 2022) and Ken Boshcoff (2022 to 2025 though the term ends in 2026). Boshcoff essentially bookends the entire period and his two terms do offer an interesting comparison both for the two periods he served as well as relative to the others. The eras these mayors served in all posed challenges for the mayor and council of the day and not all of them were politically self-induced. 

Lynn Peterson, for example, faced the most serious economic challenges of these mayors serving during the forest sector crisis at the start of her term that essentially eliminated 5,000 jobs in Thunder Bay and then ending her service with the financial crisis of 2008-09.  Bill Mauro got to experience the economic and social disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic.  Keith Hobbs, whose tenure was marked by a number of interesting high-profile issues, served during an economic period that saw some changes in Thunder Bay’s economy including the development of its knowledge based and resource sectors that served as a transition to the present period of growth.  As for Ken Boshcoff, he was truly blessed by serving in the final autumn years of the Thunder Bay forest sector pre 2003 as well as holding office after the worst of the pandemic and during the recent growth upsurge in mining and construction. Timing is often everything.

Figures 1 to 3 summarize the aforementioned indicators for each of these mayoral terms. Figure 1 provides the average annual growth rates by term for total own purpose taxation revenue, per household total own purpose taxation revenue and the municipal workforce (a head count of full, part time and seasonal workers).  The growth of taxation revenue (a function of both he rates applied as well as economic growth as reflected by growth in assessments) was highest for Boshcoff from 2022 to 2025 and Lynn Peterson 2003 to 2010).  Peterson’s term saw challenging economic conditions but in the pursuit of maintaining city services also saw some of the higher tax levy increases over the entire 2000 to 2025 period.  Tax revenue growth was also lowest under Boshcoff during the 2000 to 2003 period. Hobbs (2010 to 2018) saw the second lowest average growth in total taxation revenue.

 

Figure 1 also takes total tax revenue and divides by the number of households in the city to provide an estimate of the average tax burden per household, but it should be noted that this includes both residential and commercial revenue.  However, during the first quarter of the 21^st century, residential came to account for over 70 percent of tax revenues as the burden were shifted more on to residential as a result of provincial rebalancing. These results parallel the previous ones with Boshcoff (Term 2) and Peterson seeing the highest growth while Boshcoff (Term 1) and Hobbs see the lowest growth.  Finally, when it comes to municipal employment growth (workers employed by the City of Thunder Bay), growth was both highest and lowest for Boshcoff.  Indeed, as a result of early in the term post pandemic downsizing, Boshcoff (2022 to 2025) actually sees a slight shrinking of the municipal workforce average growth rates.

 

Figures 2 and 3 provide comparisons of the two economic indicators.  In terms of construction growth, the highest average annual growth rates in total building permit values were both for Boshcoff given his first term in office spanned the permit issued for the new hospital and his second for the rovincial jail project.  All of the others saw much more modest growth rates with the lowest rates under the term of Lynn Peterson. As for employment growth, not surprisingly, it was also highest in both of the Boshcoff terms and lowest – indeed negative – during the Peterson term with more modest growth during the Hobbesian and Mauronian terms.

 

Much of what transpired during the terms of these mayors and their respective councils was driven by external factors and as one might remark when it comes to Euchre or Poker, you must play the hand you are dealt.  One can be dealt a poor hand and manage to eke out a respectable performance.  On the other hand, one can be dealt a good hand and still handle it badly though when times are favourable it takes an awful lot of bad decision making to make a pig’s breakfast of it all. 

With the exception of Mauro, all of the mayors had a considerable period of time in which to make their mark.  Mauro was limited both by the length of his term as well as the onset of the pandemic.  Peterson was dealt a particularly poor hand in terms of economic circumstances that saw declining total employment in the city and forced higher than usual tax rate increases to maintain services.  At the same time, the period still managed to see some growth in building permit values.  The Hobbesian era despite the unfortunate moniker was neither particularly nasty, brutish or short at least in economic terms and saw a middling overall performance compared to the others.

The best performance at least in these charts over the long term appears to have been the quarter century bookend terms of Ken Boshcoff.  His two terms coincide with the highest growth rates of both building permit values as well as employment.  He managed to oversee both the largest percent expansion of municipal employment as well as the lowest, so he is able to satisfy both those who see municipal employment as a necessary economic driver as well as those who feel there needs to be restraint. His second term also coincides with the largest increases in own purpose municipal tax revenue but not necessarily the highest increases in tax levies.  One can either ascribe this relative success to the good fortune of timing or to the ability to play a good hand really well, or some linear combination thereof.  One leaves that ultimate assessment and any others they wish to make to the gentle reader.

The City of Thunder Bay Has Spoken, The Case is Closed

Thunder Bay City Council and its municipal administrative apparatus seems to have embarked on its Roman imperial phase with respect to community relations with its taxpayer base.  In response to those who provided input ( my input here ) on the 105 Junot Avenue South Rezoning application and following the October 21^st decision to uphold the rezoning in a 7-5 vote, the Office of the City Clerk provided a Notice of Passing decree that begins as follows:

“The Thunder Bay City Council passed By-law 94/2019 on the 21^st day of October 2019, under Section 34 of the Planning Act, R.S.O. 1990 as amended.

Public comment has been received and considered and had no effect on Council’s Decision as the application is consistent with all relevant planning legislation and represents good planning.”

I suppose all that was missing at the end of this statement was a simple “All Hail the Glory of the Emperor” to convey the full message of conquest and victory.  The implied message seems to be that any resistance to the edicts of City Council is futile and has no effect.   Whatever is decided is consistent, represents good planning, and the final collective decision is ultimately infallible. 

The entire public drama and division over 105 Junot was amplified by The City of Thunder Bay because they encouraged the Ontario Aboriginal Housing Corporation to expand the scale of the transitional project from 20 to 58 beds to “maximize” the use of the site which one suspects probably really means greater property tax revenues for the City - assuming that the OAHC pays property taxes.  A smaller scale facility more in keeping with other such projects around the province would have been more suitable given the many concerns raised by residents in the area and generated less discord. 

Unfortunately, the Aboriginal Housing Corporation was caught in the middle of this unfortunate situation and making it into an emotional issue that attracted the attention of the Globe and Mail did not serve anyone’s long-term interests.  What the City of Thunder Bay should have done in response to the input received was return to the original proposal of 20-beds but that would have required actually listening and accepting at least some of the arguments made by those who presented their concerns.  Really, how can a facility approved on a much larger 58-bed scale in a neighborhood with the social and crime issues that were raised be “good planning?" 

In the end, it is water off a duck’s back because many members of council believe they have been annointed as “progressive” thinkers who love their community.  The strength of their love means that they are doing good and therefore the ends always justify the means.  If that means tacitly implying that opponents to their good works are insensitive to poverty or diversity, then so be it.  They constantly solicit input from constituents but listen through a set of political noise cancelling headphones so that the discordant notes from any input not coinciding with their vision of fighting social and economic injustice is politely filtered out.

Those in Thunder Bay who uncritically champion all social injustice issues with unquestioned fervour and feel they have the ear of City Council and its municipal-corporate apparatus should be cautious.  In the end, any dispensed progressive works are to be accepted on The City’s terms because they know what is best for you.  Take the example of Dease Pool as a case in point.  Here, a long-standing community pool in what is considered a disadvantaged neighborhood was closed because it was old and needed substantial and expensive renovations.  There is continuing opposition to the closure but The City forges ahead.

The proposed new draft plan (available here) will essentially replace the pool area with a tennis court and a community garden.  Given that swimming pools accommodate a greater and more diverse number of users than a single tennis court, it seems like an oddly elitist rather than progressive use for the site.  However, consciences will be soothed with a multi-user community garden – which also atones for the environmental sin of an asphalt surface on the tennis court.  If all this redevelopment was designed to somehow deal with the rising costs of an old and aging pool, those of us with a more fiscally conservative bent could be understanding.  However, this will still cost a lot of money and in the end not fully serve the needs of the area.

As for the money that will be spent, it does not seem to matter because a “progressive” council that wants to do great things will simply raise the tax rates on its residents - who by the way are now responsible for the lion’s share of property tax revenue given the declining industrial and commercial base.  Be prepared this year for an initial budget proposal that stakes out a high increase in the tax levy.  This will be blamed on the provincial government who, being conservative rather than progressive, are the source of all fiscal evil.  After a cleansing public ritual of debate and input of appropriate length, The City will then retreat to an increase of between 3 and 4 percent thereby demonstrating that it is both fiscally responsible and generous in matters of expenditure. 

We should not complain too much.  We elected them.