By Eric Stern
June 13th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
In Ontario, municipalities are required to conduct ward boundary reviews. Reviews are undertaken every 12 to 16 years. In Burlington, a review was conducted in 2005 when the city’s population was approximately 139,000. Recently, our council completed a new review, resulting in new ward boundaries for Burlington.
Burlington has the smallest number of councillors in Halton Region and the second-largest population. Have a look at this table.
Before the ward boundary review, some councillors represented over 12,000 more people than other councillors.
Burlington has one councillor, on average, for 26,707 people, compared to one councillor, on average, for every 14,513 people in Oakville and Milton.
In addition to their responsibilities as councillors for both Halton Region and Burlington, our councillors oversee a significant number of Agencies, Boards, and Commissions. Ranging from Burlington Hydro, through BEC, to the Sound of Music Festival. Each Burlington councillor has an unelected full-time assistant to help manage this workload.
The region controls the number of regional councillors through a separate ward review process. Burlington can’t independently add more regional councillors.
This chart shows the makeup of the Halton Region council.
If Burlington were to increase the number of local councillors, not all of the new councillors would be regional councillors.
What do other municipalities in Halton do?
Oakville and Milton: Each ward has a local councillor and a regional councillor; the regional councillor is also a local councillor.
Halton Hills: Each ward has two local councillors and a regional councillor; the regional councillor is also a local councillor.
In Oakville, a local councillor earns $53,964. A local and regional councillor earns $115,276. Mayor Burton earns $204,368. Mayor Meed Ward earns $202,712.11.
What are the issues associated with more councillors?
Cost: On the surface, more councillors will cost more money. There are some counterarguments to this. When comparing councillor salaries, we can see that Oakville councillors earn slightly less than Burlington councillors. More councillors should mean less work per councillor. Each Burlington councillor has a full-time unelected councillor assistant; arguably, these positions should be elected, resulting in better representation and accountability for taxpayers at no additional cost.
What was the result of Burlington’s ward review?
Burlington will not follow the model set by Oakville, Milton, and Halton Hills. Each councillor will continue to be a local and regional councillor. Burlington’s councillors will represent almost twice as many people as councillors in other municipalities in Halton. Major decisions impacting the future of the city will continue to be made by as few as four councillors voting for an issue. Four councillors constitute a majority on a 7-member council.
Without citizen action, this will be the status quo for the next 12 to 16 years.
Burlington spent at least $220,000 hiring consultants to conduct the ward review. The result is the new ward boundary map shown below.
The boundary lines on this map will be effective when the 2026 municipal election is called.
Eric Stern was a member of BRAG – Burlington Residents’ Action Group. He formed Focus Burlington when BRAG was dissolved.
I’m afraid that I’m unclear about what you’re recommending overall. I think that there is a great deal of analysis that needs to be done here and, to my knowledge, it remains unfinished. Your statement “each Burlington councillor has a full-time unelected councillor assistant; arguably, these positions should be elected, resulting in better representation and accountability for taxpayers at no additional cost.” would seem to ignore the fact that the administrative assistants do necessary admin. work for the Councillors and someone will still need to do it – so it is not a net zero game. If this is your initial offering as part of FocusBurlington, then I am a bit disappointed in the lack of depth.
However, your survey suggestion below reminds me that the Gazette undertook a readership survey several months ago and delayed reporting the results because of the election. I have not seen the results reported since – unless I missed them.
Eric
What is the benefits of having an elected assistant to the mayor and or councilors? Is that not in effect a eunuch councilor? To whom would the elected assistant have first allegiance? The mayor/councilor or the electorate? Surely the assistant is there to “assist” the mayor/councilor not to be political and possibly be confrontational with the mayor/councilor. None of MPPs, MPs, Premiers and PM have a elected assistants.
I have an opinion about how the ward boundary review was conducted but I’m only one person in our diverse community. We setup a survey on this subject. Please take a look https://forms.gle/vVvQ9vfLL3G4vBK57