The mayor of Guelph will soon have a variety of new powers, the provincial government announced on Friday.
As of July 1, the city’s mayor will have the ability to veto council-approved bylaws, create committees and decide who leads them, hire senior city staff, reorganize municipal departments and more.
Efforts to reach Mayor Cam Guthrie for comment weren’t immediately successful. He was in Toronto for the announcement.
“Today’s announcement by the provincial government providing strong mayor powers for Ontario’s largest and fastest-growing cities comes at a time when mayors need every tool to advance work on housing pledges and meet new challenges,” Guthrie said in a provincial news release. “Although strong mayor powers may not be required in all contexts to reach our collective housing goals, our citizens expect results – and tools such as this can help us achieve them.”
Guelph is one of 26 municipalities to see ‘strong mayor’ power granted through the announcement, following last fall’s endorsement of the same for Toronto and Ottawa.
“Municipalities are critical partners for our government as we help communities get shovels in the ground faster and work to build more homes,” said Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Steve Clark in the release. “By adopting ambitious and absolutely necessary housing pledges, these 26 municipalities have demonstrated they understand the importance of that target, and we are ensuring they have the tools they need to succeed."
The idea, as explained in the release, is to allow heads of council to "cut red tape and speed up the delivery of key shared municipal-provincial priorities such as housing, transit and infrastructure."
Council can override the mayor's veto of bylaws and/or budget amendments with a two-thirds majority vote, which in the case of Guelph means nine councillors.
In a motion approved last September, city council denounced the concept of strong mayor powers and called for them not to be applied in Guelph.
“It’s not a power I believe we need. City council has always been one of collaboration,” Guthrie said at the time. “To allege that a mayor knows everything about every single issue in every single corner of the city is completely unfounded.
“A strong mayor initiative depletes the value of a councillor.”
At that time Guthrie was in the midst of a re-election campaign. A month later, local voters returned him to the mayor’s office for a third term, with 71 per cent of voter support.
Not everyone on council is in favour of the idea. Councillors Erin Caton and Leanne Caron both took to Twitter to express their disappointment ahead of the announcement on Friday morning.
“We don't need strong mayors. We need stronger cities. We are not children anymore,” Caron tweeted.
“Apparently mayoral dictatorship will be in Guelph,” Caton posted. “What type of mayor with a shred of democratic belief would use this?”
In a subsequent tweet, Caton added, “I haven’t been on the winning side of every vote and I can’t imagine having a democratic tantrum and overturning the will of council. It’s upsetting at a core governance level this is happening.”
