With the fall municipal election looming and the slate of ward candidates being somewhat thin ahead of the August 21st filing deadline, Thunder Bay’s municipal race is not as contested as the 2022 election – at least aside from the mayor’s chair. That year saw six candidates vie for the mayor’s position and 54 candidates for assorted councillor positions. At present, there are seven candidates for mayor but only seventeen running for council positions with several wards having only one candidate. There is of course still over a week to go, and one can expect more candidates to file.
There are any number of reasons why there may currently be a dearth of candidates. One reason may simply be to keep your powder dry. After all, once you have filed you are campaigning and become a target for others and it is useful, especially if you are established, to minimize the amount of time you have to campaign. On the other hand, there have been a significant number of current council members who have stated they are not running again and that may indicate the positions have become less attractive for reasons ranging from compensation to social media attacks. After all, when a ward incumbent leaves the position, one might expect it would attract more entry.
Then, there is the possibility that being a councillor does not really seem to provide much influence over municipal issues given that issues have become increasingly complex and much is being dictated by the province. Moreover, the role of council increasingly seems to be one of simply selecting from options provided by administration transforming the role more into that of an advisory board to the city manager. It is not that councillors cannot rear up and change things but the complexity and intractability of some of the current issues (crime, infrastructure, green space, housing affordability, homelessness) make the task particularly daunting given the abuse that comes with the process.
Of course, the real sleeper issue here is not even the current dearth of candidates but the composition of the mayor’s race. There are seven candidates at present for the position but only one has previously held municipal office or any elected office for that matter. Now that in of itself is not necessarily a problem. After all, this is Canada and our current Prime Minister went into the top job without ever having held any elected office. If a former central banker can become prime minister, then surely local businesspeople and professionals can become mayor without having previously been a mayor or councillor.
The real issue with respect to the mayor’s position is the following. Ontario now provides for strong mayor powers that ostensibly are tied to provincial priorities such as housing, transit and infrastructure. These powers if exercised include proposing the municipal budget (subject to a two-thirds veto by council), assuming the powers of the Chief Administrative Officer, hiring and dismissing of staff including the Chief Administrative Officer (but excluding certain positions such as the City Treasurer, police and fire chief, etc.…) and the vetoing of bylaws deemed to interfere with provincial priorities. These can potentially be very substantial powers and to his credit, the outgoing mayor formally declared his intention not to use those powers with respect to budget issues though he did say he would consider using them regarding an issue with animal keeping bylaws.
However, there now a slate of mayoral candidates with a range of backgrounds and experiences and given what we know about them, how might they interpret and use these powers? As we move into the fall and the election heats up, there are a number of important questions that need to be addressed and answered by anyone seeking the mayor’s chair. Along with their “vision” for Thunder Bay, they need to explain whether or not they would seek to use strong mayor powers and what are the issues and circumstances that they believe would warrant the exercise of such powers. The presence of strong powers also requires their responsible use and we need all the information we can get on that.
