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.

Ontario’s August Employment Numbers: Yours to Discover

  

In the wake of Canada’s employment surge in July, August appears to have brought everyone back down to earth.  According to the August 2026 Labour Force Survey, Statistics Canada reported that employment declined by 42,000 (-0.2%) in August though the national unemployment rate remained unchanged at 6.4%.  Employment fell in business, building and other support services, public administration, natural resources and utilities though it increased 1.2 percent in in manufacturing adding 22,000 jobs. Nevertheless, it should be stressed that one should not agonize over month to month numbers given they do not indicate a trend and are frequently revised.

While Ontario lost jobs according to the raw numbers once the numbers are seasonally adjusted, Ontario saw a small increase of 5700 jobs which essentially means that employment growth in Ontario was lacklustre in August.  If one examines the seasonally adjusted numbers for Ontario and its major urban areas in August (Figure 1), Windsor, Toronto and Guelph added 6100, 5900 and 2600 jobs respectively.  It’s pretty much downhill from there in terms of the absolute number of jobs added with Thunder Bay, Oshawa, London, Hamilton and Ottawa seeing job losses.  Indeed, Hamilton and Ottawa were the hardest hit with Hamilton seeing 5100 jobs lost and Ottawa – still seeing cuts in public sector workers – fell by 9200 jobs.

 

 

If one looks at the growth rates in annual terms (August 2025 to August 2026; See Figure 2), seasonally adjusted monthly employment is still up substantially with Ontario seeing 96,500 jobs added since August 2025 for an increase of 1.2 percent in employment.  Guelph and Bellville-Quinte lead the annualized employment growth rates at 13.5, and 9.9 percent respectively followed by Windsor at 6.1 percent and Greater Sudbury, at 5 percent. Again, several cities saw negative employment growth with Thunder Bay and Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge at -0.3 percent, Hamilton at -1.4 percent and London at -4.5 percent.

 

 

The impact of tariffs and the trade war to date over the course of the year are not yet having a major impact in Ontario though the performance across some cities is a bit more mixed.  Hamilton, London and Ottawa appear to be having the most turmoil in their employment. The monthly August numbers in the wake of the July surge cannot really be taken as indicative of any trend though the annualized numbers suggest Ontario is holding its own.  As for the two northern Ontario CMAs, Figure 3 plots their longer-term employment evolution in more detail.

 

 

Both Thunder Bay and Greater Sudbury have seen increasing employment since 2021 based on both the profile of monthly numbers as well as the fitted trend.  Since August of 2021, Greater Sudbury has added over 18,000 jobs while Thunder Bay has added 4700.  In percent terms, employment in Greater Sudbury has grown by 22 percent while Thunder Bay has grown by 8 percent.  However, Thunder Bay, based on these monthly seasonally adjusted numbers peaked in January of 2026 at an employment level of 70,400 jobs meaning that over the last eight months, it has shed 3800 jobs.  This suggests that there has been a substantial slowdown in employment in Thunder Bay and may be tied to the winding up of major construction projects at places like the airport, assorted hotels and of course the new correctional facility as well as some reductions in public sector employment.

A return to the mid 60000s in total employment suggests that Thunder Bay will not be permanently staying above the 70000-job employment ceiling at least for now.

The Real Issue in Thunder Bay’s Municipal Election

  

With the fall municipal election looming and the slate of ward candidates being somewhat thin ahead of the August 21^st 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.

 

Thunder Bay, Sudbury and Ontario: More Crime Trends

  

Well, with so much data available in the recent releases of crime data from statistics Canada, another crime post is definitely in order especially as a way to mark the end of the civic holiday long weekend.  This time, a focus on Thunder Bay and Greater Sudbury with respect to trends over time given they are northern Ontario’s two largest metropolitan centers, along with a comparison to Ontario as a whole to put things in perspective.  Figure 1a presents the 2025 rates for both all-criminal code incidents (excluding traffic violations) as well as the violent crime rate for Thunder Bay, Greater Sudbury, and Ontario.  As Figure 1a shows, Thunder Bay is definitely experiencing higher police reported crime rates than either Greater Sudbury or Ontario as a whole. 

 

In 2025, Thunder Bay’s crime rate was 8,374 crimes per 100,000 population compared to 4,706 per 100,000 for Greater Sudbury and 4,297 per 100,000 for Ontario.  Thunder Bay’s crime rate in 2025 was 95 percent greater than Ontario and 10 percent more tin the case of  Greater Sudbury.  In terms of violent crime, Thunder Bay’s rate was 2,249 per 100,000 compared to 1,177 for Greater Sudbury and 1,078 for Ontario. Violent crime in Thunder Bay in 2025 was109 percent greater than the Ontario rate whereas Greater Sudbury was 9 percent more. 

As well, Figure 1b shows the homicide rate in Thunder Bay for 2025 was 6.1 per 100,000 while in Sudbury it was 4.1 per 100,000 and only 1.3 per 100,000 in Ontario as a whole.  Needless to say, crime rates in Thunder Bay and Sudbury are above the rates for Ontario as a whole but Thunder Bay in general is double the Ontario rate while Sudbury is only about 10 percent more.  However, in terms of homicides, both cities were well above the Ontario rate in 2025 with Thunder Bay 369 percent greater than Ontario as a whole and Sudbury 215 percent greater.

Figure 2 presents a dual scale chart for Ontario with total crimes and violent crimes per 100,000 on the left vertical axis and the homicide rate per 100,000 on the right.  Observations for the three series are plotted from 1998 to 2025 with a linear trend fitted to each series.  If one looks at the three raw series, crime rates including violent crimes and homicides generally declined from 1998 to about 2014 and then started to rise.  Over that period, the crime rate in Ontario went from 7,019 per 100,000 to 3,549 per 100,000 while the violent crime rate declined from 1,222 to 789.  Homicides also fell from 1.4 to 1.2 per 100,000. However, since then, all have increased with the crime rate in 2025 reaching 4,297 per 100,000, violent crime reaching 1,078 and the homicide rate up to 1.3 per 100,000.  In terms of an overall trend, violent crime and total crime rates over the 1998 to 2025 period still trend downwards but the homicide rate in Ontario now shows a rising long-term trend.

 

Figures 3 and 4 present parallel charts for Thunder Bay and Greater Sudbury.  Both cities follow patterns similar to the rest of the province in that overall crime and violent crime rates decline from 1998 to 2014 and then start to rise with the overall linear trend being downward for the overall 1998 to 2025 period.  Both also show noticeable rising homicide rates over the long term and declining overall crime rates when a linear trend is fitted to the 1998 to 2025 data. In the case of violent crime over the 1998 to 2025 period, Thunder Bay shows a declining violent crime rate when the linear trend is fitted while Greater Sudbury shows a gently rising violent crime rate trend.

 

 

Nevertheless, crime is a matter of both level and trend when making comparisons so Figures 5 and 6 focus on the two most serious categories –violent crimes and homicides – to compare Thunder Bay, Greater Sudbury, and Ontario more directly.  Figure 5 presents the violent crime rates and shows that Thunder Bay and Ontario do indeed trend down while Greater Sudbury trends up over the 1998 to 2025 period.  However, when one looks at the gap between Thunder Bay, Sudbury and Ontario, based on the trends, it will be the end of the 21st century when Thunder Bay matches Sudbury’s violent crime rate while it looks like it will always be double the Ontario rate. 

 

 

Things look somewhat worse when it comes to the homicide rate (see figure 6).  Both Thunder Bay and Greater Sudbury have seen a major spike in their homicide rates since 2020 which has pulled their trend lines upwards.  However, Thunder Bay is definitely in a class of its own with a level of homicides as well as an upward trajectory that makes the homicide rates in Greater Sudbury and Ontario look modest by comparison.  However, it was not always so. Up until 2008, while homicide rates in both Greater Sudbury and Thunder Bay fluctuated around the Ontario numbers, they tended to parallel each other. Indeed, for the 1998 to 2008 period, the average annual homicide rate (per 100,000 population) in Thunder Bay was 1.4, Greater Sudbury 1.4, and for Ontario it was 1.5.  For the 2015 to 2025 period, the average homicide rate in Thunder Bay was 6.1 while for Greater Sudbury it was 2.2 and for Ontario 1.6.

Taken over the long run, Thunder Bay has always had generally higher crime rates than Ontario as a whole and the gap has been fairly consistent.  However, its reputation as Ontario’s “murder city” is a relatively recent phenomenon. Thunder Bay’s average homicide rates were not out of line with the rest of the province prior to 2008 and it has only been since then that homicide rates in Thunder Bay have soared. It is indeed an interesting question as to what factors are responsible for the increase since 2008.  What is it about the post 2008 period that makes that year in Thunder Bay such a break with the past when it comes to homicides? Sudbury has seen a similar type of spike in homicide rates since 2015 though it remains to be seen if that new upward trend will continue.  Given that this is a municipal election year in Ontario, these numbers should be an interesting focus for debate.

Crime, Ontario and Thunder Bay

  

Statistics Canada released the police reported crime statistics for Canada in 2025 last week and the overall trends were a decline in both the conventional Crime Rate (CR) as well as the Crime Severity Index (CSI).  According to Statistics Canada, in 2025 the national CSI dropped by 5 percent while the CR declined by 2 percent.  In other words, both the number of crimes per 100,000 population (excluding traffic violations) fell as well as the seriousness of those crimes. Relative to their historic peak in the early 1990s, crime rates are still down dramatically though they are up from 2015 which marks the start of a reversal of the long-term downward trend. However, since 2023, both crime severity and crime rates appear to have declined.

Ontario reflects the national trends with crime severity in 2025 down 6 percent from the year previous (though still up 12 percent from 2015) and the crime rate down 4 percent from the previous year but up 20 percent from 2015.  The Ontario numbers vary when its major CMAs are examined with quite a few CMAs up while others are down.  However, the largest cities – Toronto and Ottawa – are both down and they of course affect the provincial totals dramatically given together they account for well over half of Ontario’s population.  As for northern Ontario CMAs – Greater Sudbury in 2025 saw a 2 percent decline in its CSI but a 3 percent increase in its crime rate while Thunder Bay saw a 3 percent increase in its CSI and an 18 percent rise in its crime rate – the largest increases across Canada’s 41 CMAs. However, Thunder Bay did not have the highest total crime rate in the country as that dubious distinction went to Chilliwack, B.C. (at 11,455 crimes per 100,000) while Thunder Bay was a bit further down the list in 6th place (after Kamloops, Red Deer, Nanaimo and Kelowna) at 8,373 crimes per 100,000.

Comparing Thunder Bay to the other major Ontario CMAs is done in Figure 1 and Thunder Bay definitely stands out when compared to other Ontario cities.  Thunder Bay is first at 8,374 crimes per 100,000 with Peterborough second at 5,386.  At the bottom are Toronto and Barrie at 3,950 and 3,777 respectively.  In terms of growth (Figure 2), about half of Ontario CMAs saw their crime rates decline and the other half saw an increase.  Thunder Bay is not only growing in terms of population, housing, construction and retail but also unfortunately with respect to crime.  Thunder Bay saw the largest increase at 18 percent followed by Brantford at 10 percent and then London at 7 percent.  Toronto and Windsor saw the largest declines at 5 percent and 10 percent respectively. 

 

 

A logical question is what policing resources are available to these Ontario cities to fight crime and Figure 3 presents police officers per 100,000 using data from Statistics Canada (TABLE 35100077).  Here it should be noted that the crime figures correspond to CMAs, whereas the police statistics are for municipal police services whose boundaries may not exactly correspond with the CMA boundaries. Nevertheless, the rankings proceed and here Thunder Bay is again at the top of the rankings of these Ontario municipal forces with 197 police officers per 100,000 in 2025. Next highest is Windsor at 172 followed by Toronto at 171.  At the bottom of the rankings are London, Ottawa and Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge (Waterloo Region Police) at 143, 135 and 118 officers per 100,000 respectively. Thunder Bay has the highest crime rate across major Ontario cities and it has the highest policing resources per capita.

 

However, Figure 4 looks at the policing resources in a somewhat different way.  It looks at the growth in police officers per 100,000 and does so between 2023 and 2025 (because Statistics Canada’s annual data does not have an entry for 2024). Here the numbers show that while the majority of Ontario municipal police forces saw growth in police officers per 100,000 – about one third did not.  Those showing a decline are Sudbury, Windsor, Kingston, Thunder Bay and Brantford. Of these five cities showing a decline in policing resources per capita, four also saw an increase in crime rates in 2025 with the exception being Windsor.

 

So, is there a relationship between policing resources and crime?  Simple correlations between police numbers and crime rates are probably not the best way to evaluate this type of relationship and a regression approach where confounding factors like demographics, community income and land area are considered are better.  Some might argue that wealthier communities with better socio-economic conditions can both afford more police as well as have the determinants for lower crime rates.  Some might argue that more police simply means more crime gets reported and could paradoxically result in a positive relationship between crime rates and policing. Nevertheless, it can be done simply and Figures 5 and 6 are presented together because they show an interesting feature of the data when you plot the crime rate against the number of police officers.  

 

Figure 5 plots the crime rate per 100,000 for all the Ontario CMAs against the number the number of police officers per 100,000 and the correlation is positive when a linear trend is fitted. However, that trend is heavily influenced by one observation in the northeast corner of the chart which "pulls" the line upward.  That is Thunder Bay.  If you remove Thunder Bay and redraw the chart with linear trend (Figure 6) you get the more conventional result that more police officers per capita are correlated with lower crime rates.  Thunder Bay is what one can refer to as an “outlier”.  It is not like the others.

Of course, it might be that using levels is not the way to do such a comparison and what might be better is to plot the recent growth in the crime rate against the recent growth in police officers per 100,000.  This is done in Figure 7 and the result is (including Thunder Bay) more conventional and in line with the expectation that if the number of police officers per 100,000 population is growing, the crime rate should see lower growth rates or even declines. Thunder Bay in this chart is in the northwest quadrant with a decline in per capita police resources in 2025 and an increase in crime rates.

 

Still, Thunder Bay even if its recent policing resources per capita have declined, nevertheless has the most police officers per capita of the Ontario cities in this comparison.  Does this mean there is an efficiency or effectiveness problem? Again, one way to look at this is to take the statistics and compute the reported crimes per police officer.  Figure 8 does this and the ranking shows that Thunder Bay has the third highest reported crimes per police officer of these Ontario cities.  In other words, there are a lot of crimes being reported by the police.  If one wants to use crimes reported per police officer as a productivity or effectiveness measure, then the Thunder Bay Police Service is one of the most “productive or effective” in Ontario.  They are catching a lot of crime.

 

What does this mean for crime in Thunder Bay?  Why are crime rates in Thunder Bay so high despite having one of the largest police forces in per capita terms?  It is because Thunder Bay simply has a lot of crime and it is getting worse and overwhelming the resources available.  If one may hypothesize, Thunder Bay is indeed unique in some of the economic and social forces that have shaped its past and continue to shape its future.  It is located at the crossroads of the country which means it is a transport node not only for grain, potash and transport trucks but also for criminals and criminal activity. 

In terms of social elements, Thunder Bay is a community that has always had a frontier edge and that includes an element of independence that can often border on lawlessness.  While it is true that Canadian cities have all become a bit more lawless in the wake of the COVID pandemic, Thunder Bay seems further along the path when compared to even the GTA. Lawlessness progresses in degrees.  Not following parking bylaws for snow removal or walking your dog across other people’s lawns is the start and suggests a lack of concern for others and the public good.  Indulging in rolling stops at stop signs, speeding and then running a red light is the next step.   I have seen vehicles doing U-turns on the Thunder Bay expressway seemingly oblivious to other traffic.  Increased theft in stores is yet another progression and then there is the infiltration of Thunder Bay by increased numbers of drug dealers coming from Toronto due to it being both a captive and lucrative market in its own right as well as a gateway to northern reserves.  Then comes the litany of domestic abuse and household violence largely springing from drug and alcohol abuse which also consumes police resources.

The police in Thunder Bay are essentially being overwhelmed.  They are being asked to solve not only Thunder Bay’s crime and social problems – which are substantial in their own right - but to deal with a wider range of provincial and national crime trends due to Thunder Bay’s location as a transport crossroads. Do you want to see crime rates in Thunder Bay come down?  Additional resources from the O.P.P. and the R.C.M.P need to be deployed outside the city limits along the highways leading to the city as well as the airport, port and railyards.   Sniffer dogs going through luggage at the airport and a more visible police presence there is needed.  There should be a lot more “seat belt” checks and “speeding enforcements” on the 11/17 and Highway 61 corridors leading to the city as well as more transport truck “safety inspections.”

It is not just the resource available but how they are deployed and used.  Moreover, crime fighting requires cooperation across jurisdictions and better coordination of efforts between the assorted policing levels.  Thunder Bay’s crime rate can be reduced but given the national and regional spillovers of the problem both into and out of Thunder Bay, it is not just the responsibility of the Thunder Bay Police Service.  In some ways, Thunder Bay’s role as a transport choke point is both the source of its crime problems and can facilitate its potential solution. At least, that is what the numbers are telling me.

Municipal Surpluses Are Not That Unexpected

  

The news that the City of Thunder Bay has an “unexpected” operating surplus for 2025 has been greeted with a mixture of commentary including some remarks that it should be spent on crumbing roads or perhaps a tax break.  Apparently much of the additional revenue came from the liquidation of an investment portfolio and as is standard policy, will be added to the reserves.  None of this is really a surprise because if one looks back on past budget years, often, there is an operating surplus or what is referred to as positive variance. 

 

Figure 1 plots City of Thunder Bay operating surpluses from 2012 to 2025 and two-thirds of the time the city has had an operating surplus.  Indeed, the accumulated operating surpluses since 2012 sum to about 17 million dollars.  However, this is not the end of the story because this is only the operating surplus.  The City of Thunder Bay has both a capital and an operating budget and over the 2009 to 2024 period (2025 for Thunder Bay is not available yet on FIR), the total surplus (the difference between total revenues and total expenditures) was only in deficit twice as illustrated in Figure 2.  Indeed, the accumulated total surplus since 2009 has been 376.1 million dollars.

 

This is not a Thunder Bay thing. Across Canada, municipalities are not separate tiers of government but essentially wards or creatures of the province. Provinces keep a tight rein over municipalities and their finances ensuring that they generally run surpluses and that those surpluses go into reserves.  As Figure 3 illustrates, periods of deficit in the national local government sector have been few with only the four years from 2000 to 2003 showing a deficit.  So, Thunder Bay is not exceptional in generating repeated surpluses – it is something that is the norm.  The greater concern would be municipalities running perpetual deficits but that is something generally indulged in by the federal and provincial governments.  By comparison, municipalities are paragons of fiscal rectitude.

 

Do Thunder Bay Councillors Deserve a Raise?

  

At the April 21^stcouncil meeting, Thunder Bay City Council voted itself a substantial set of pay increases that will take effect over time bringing the mayor’s salary as well as those of the councillors to $173,859 and $62,298 to align with current “market” medians of $139,618 and $50,689 over the next eight years.  What of course has caught a lot of attention is the annual increases of up to 9 percent annually that will approximately double councillor remuneration. Naturally the comments and the poll results on TBnewswatch.com overwhelmingly disapprove.

For the record, I think that members of city council do require the pay increases though the term “market median” is a bit disingenuous given that municipal service as a councillor is not a labour market in which councillors shop their wares across a geographic distribution of municipalities. While some might think that this type of community service should be completely selfless at low amounts of compensation, it remains that the compensation is necessary because although the community service is an honour and therefore does not require compensation, the salary is for all the other things that come with the position including constant scrutiny by the public and  the substantial amount of abuse it entails.  If you think about it, the current compensation of a municipal councillor in Thunder Bay is barely at the level of full-time minimum wage work (assuming five eight hour days a week at 50 weeks with two weeks’ vacation) which means it is unlikely to appeal to a broader range of talent. You do get what you pay for.

Still, what has been proposed is not without criticism.  In my view, it is not what was done, or the amount of the compensation per se, but how it was done.  Raising councillor salaries is not just a Thunder Bay thing.  Indeed, many of the “comparator” communities used to justify the increase are also raising or planning to raise their compensation next year including Barrie, Chatham-Kent, and Kingston. Also interesting is Cambridge which in its review of salaries concluded that the mayor was overpaid while councillors were underpaid. However, most interesting is the way Chatham-Kent is implementing its pay increases alongside a restructuring and shrinking of its municipal council from 17 to 14 councillors.  Thunder Bay considered but, in the end, did not reduce the number of councillors going with the status quo, but has gone ahead with pay increase anyway.  The pay increase would have been a lot more politically palatable if it had been accompanied by structural reform.

The other aspect was the choice of comparators.  In the past, when comparing things like property taxes, municipal expenditures, or debt levels across municipalities, some of the feedback received has involved criticism that what I am doing is comparing “apples” with “oranges” and that there are substantial differences and nuances across municipalities and how they function that require highlighting when presenting comparisons as every city is unique. It would appear, however that when it comes to salary comparisons resulting in a pay increase, there are no such qualms at the local municipal level.

The new plan sees council salaries pegged to the median pay of eight comparator municipalities: Barrie, Cambridge, Chatham-Kent, Greater Sudbury, Guelph, Kingston, Sault Ste. Marie, and the County of Simcoe.  These were chosen by a consulting company, and the same communities have been used by this company to do other salary comparisons for other municipalities.  In the case of Thunder Bay - a single-tier urban municipality - it is being compared to Chatham-Kent,  which is a single-tier semi-rural municipality, Greater Sudbury, which is a regional municipality, and the County of Simcoe – which is a rather odd fish in that it has a population of nearly 400,000 and includes Barrie and Orillia as separate single tier municipalities. Even more odd is its governance, no doubt an artefact of history,  with a council of 37 members including a warden rather than a mayor, deputy mayors and councillors.  It looks like a regional type municipality to me. Personally, I would have left these three out and included St. Catherines, Burlington, and perhaps Peterborough but I digress.

Using the comparators provided, it is useful to illustrate these comparators with Thunder Bay on several indicators though I am exercising my prerogative to not use Simcoe County because it seems to be a real outlier and replace it with Orillia which is in Simcoe County.  Incidentally, the mayor’s salary and councillor salary for Orillia are close to those for Simcoe County so it fits in just fine.  Figure 1 plots my comparators by population size, and they range from a high of 179,197 for Greater Sudbury to a low of 36,904 for Orillia. In terms of population, Thunder Bay (117,000) is below both the median and the average in this group of comparators.  Figure 2 plots the number of councillors (not including the mayor) and here Thunder Bay is not greatly at odds with everyone else being above average but at the median. 

 

 

Figure 3 plots the salaries of mayors, and these range from a high of $152,500 for Guelph to a low of $87,638 for Sault Ste. Marie with Thunder Bay below both the average and the median.  Finally, Figure 4 plots the councillor salaries which range from a high of $56,206 in Cambridge to a low of $28,193 in Sault Ste. Marie with an average of $43,317 and a median of $44,276.  Thunder Bay’s mayor is paid 19 percent below the average while its councillors are paid 23 percent below the average.  It turns out that relatively speaking, councillors in Thunder Bay are more underpaid than the mayor but not by much.

 

 

Having looked at these indicators, one cannot help but conclude that given the comparators, members of Thunder Bay City Council receive remuneration below the average for these comparators.  Given that these averages are moving targets since other municipalities are also raising their compensation, the increases suggested are also not unreasonable.  In the end, based on this year’s total tax levy of 250 million dollars, the salaries of the mayor and council comprise about $500,000 which is about one-fifth of one percent of the total tax levy.  Sure, it’s a bit more with additional benefits and stipends but even with the proposed increases, by 2033 the total will be about $1 million.  With growth, the council share of the tax levy is not going to change much.  This is not unreasonable.

 

What is also reasonable is given the choice of comparators, why not use them to do one more comparison.  If they are good enough to show that our municipal politicians are underpaid, then they are also good enough to compare tax burdens. Figure 5 plots the average property taxes paid for a detached bungalow for these same comparator municipalities.  The taxes paid range from a high of $4,811 for Guelph to a low of $3,707 for Sault Ste. Marie.  Thunder Bay comes in second at $4,615 which is above the average of $4,275 and the median of $4,298.  It is nice to know that we are above average in something.

Port Activity Will Help Stabilize Thunder Bay's Economy in 2026

  

Despite the snow on the ground, spring has arrived at the Port of Thunder Bay and that means two things.  First, the arrival of the first vessel with the  MV Kathy McKeil passing the breakwall at on March 26.  Second, there is the annual Opening of Navigation Luncheon which will take place this year on April 8^th at the Italian Cultural Centre in Thunder Bay. These annual events always remind us of the importance of the Port of Thunder Bay, not only in the past when the twin ports of Port Arthur and Fort William were the largest grain port in the world but at present given the revitalization of the port’s activity since 2000 and especially over the last decade.  As of 2024, the Port provided approximately 1,000 direct jobs and an annual economic impact of $370 million.

It bears looking at some of the recent trends in the main cargo that passes through the port. Figure 1 presents a plot of total tonnage through the port since 2000 along with a LOWESS smooth to isolate the trends and there has been a pronounced upward trend since 2010 with an average annual growth rate in total tonnage of 1.3 percent annually since 2000 and 3.3 percent since 2010.  In 2025, total tonnage through the Port of Thunder Bay was 10.8 million tonnes. 

 

Of course, the main commodity remains grain accounting in 2025 for 84 percent of total tonnage shipped. Figure 2 presents grain tonnage through the port since 2000 and again with the trend shows an increase after 2010 with a plateauing from about 2016 to 2020 and then another surge bringing total grain tonnage shipped in 2025 to almost 9 million tonnes. From 2000 to 2025, grain tonnage shipped has grown at an annual rate of 1.9 percent but since 2010 the growth rate averaged 4.1 percent annually. Figures 3 and 4 repeat the plots for potash and dry bulk. Since 2000, potash shipments in tonnes have grown at an annual rate of 9.6 percent but since 2010 the growth rate has been 20 percent. Meanwhile, dry bulk since 2000 grew at an annual rate of 7.1 percent with the period since 2010 seeing annual growth of 5.7 percent.  

 

 

With the renewed emphasis on east-west trade within Canada along with the disruption in world markets and shipping as a result the ongoing wars in the crucial cross-roads of the Middle East, one expects the demand for Canadian resource products as well as shipments through Thunder Bay to increase in 2026.  This will be a boon to the Thunder Bay economy and a counterweight to the forecasts of tepid growth in 2026 from Signal49 research.The Port of Thunder Bay remains an important component of local and regional economic activity.

Northwest Resilience and Growth

  

The Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association (NOMA) will be meeting April 22^nd to 24^th for its 2026 conference and annual general meeting in Thunder Bay, under the theme “Resilience.” After the winter we have had, resilience is an apt theme though one suspects the choice of theme pertains to the economy and municipal finances rather than the weather and the gauntlet that has become the region’s highways. Economic resilience is especially important these days and it is important to note that the economy in Northwestern Ontario has been doing rather well over the last few years if one is to take labour force data at face value.

It has been an era not of decline or stagnation but of growth with that growth occurring both in the region’s dominant metropolis of Thunder Bay but also outside of it.  Indeed, there has been a noticeable improvement in one of the key indicators at least from the general public’s perspective – the unemployment rate.  From highs of 8 percent in the wake of the Great Recession and Forest Sector Crisis, the unemployment rate in Northwestern Ontario in 2025 stood at 4.6 percent compared to over 6 percent for Canada and over 7 percent for Ontario.  Using data from Statistics Canada, a more detailed portrait of improvement emerges. 

 

Figure 1 plots three labour market indicators for Northwestern Ontario comparing 2015 with 2025.  Between these two years, the population aged 15 years and over grew from 173,400 to 184,200. The labour force grew from 104,700 to 112,500 and employment grew from 98,400 to 107,300.  Of course, it is worth looking at the data in terms of the Thunder Bay CMA and the rest of the region given that Thunder Bay CMA accounts for about 60 percent of both the population and employment of the entire region.  

 

Figure 2 repeats the indicators for the Thunder Bay and adds Full Time(FT) and Part Time (PT) Employment.  Thunder Bay’s population aged 15 years and over increased by 7,400 between 2015 and 2025.  This was accompanied by labour force growth also of 7,400 individuals and employment growth again of 7,400 with FT employment growing by 8,100 while PT Employment declined by 700 jobs.  The good news here is that this employment creation was overwhelming FT employment, and this pattern repeats itself outside of Thunder Bay.   Figure 3 shows that for the rest of Northwest Ontario outside of Thunder Bay, the population aged 15 years and over grew by 3,400 with the labour force growing by 400 and employment growing by 1500.  FT employment in the region outside Thunder Bay grew by 1,800 while PT employment also declined by 300 jobs.  

 

Figure 4 compares percent growth in these indicators across Thunder Bay and the Rest of Northwest Ontario.  Between 2015 and 2025, population aged 15 and over grew 7 percent in Thunder Bay and 5 percent in the rest of the region.  The labour force grew nearly 12 percent in Thunder Bay but only 1 percent in the rest of the region.  Meanwhile, employment grew 12.5 percent in Thunder Bay and 3.8 percent in the rest of the region.  Full time employment grew impressively by nearly 18 percent in Thunder Bay and almost 6 percent outside of Thunder Bay.  Part time employment declined more in Thunder Bay at -5 percent as opposed to about -4 percent outside of Thunder Bay.

 

Figure 5 illustrates the annual unemployment rates in Thunder Bay and the outside region.  Both have declined over time with the decline somewhat sharper in the region outside of Thunder Bay.  That is because the labour force has expanded more rapidly in Thunder Bay relative to the rest of the region as Thunder Bay has attracted more population growth.  Nonetheless, a rising tide appears to have lifted all boats and the improvement in full time employment is especially welcome.

 

What has been driving these improvements?  The construction work both in Thunder Bay and the region whether on the electricity grid or highway improvement has been a factor.  Thunder Bay can add housing and hotel construction to this set of projects not to mention a billion-dollar correctional facility. Then there is mining development which continues to generate employment and activity.  Of course, the region also benefits from a large public sector and quasi-public sector particularly in the health, social assistance and indigenous economic sectors which has also been a factor in employment growth nationwide.  All these sectors in Northwest Ontario have been relatively well sheltered from the ongoing tariff dispute with the United States.  While the Northwest has not escaped unscathed from recent employment losses, it remains that much of the fallout has hit the manufacturing sector in southern Ontario.

So, regional municipal delegates and leaders will have a lot to celebrate at this year’s NOMA Meetings. Indeed, this growth should also be reflected in growing municipal tax bases which will afford additional revenue.  Yet, it is not time to rest on laurels given that the economy both nationally and globally remains turbulent and uncertain.  Hopefully the region will be able to capitalize both on critical minerals mining as well as the growth in defense related spending.