Strong Mayor Powers are taking a beating at the municipal level

By Pepper Parr

June 9^th, 2026

BURLINGTON, ON

Municipal Councillors are beginning to take another look at that gift horse: Strong Mayor Powers

Newmarket City Hall

Every year, Newmarket Mayor John Taylor gets the same letter from Premier Doug Ford’s housing minister: It offers strong-mayor powers, a package of unprecedented authorities introduced by Ford’s government that confers unilateral control over key municipal functions.

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Taylor says he “believes that strong-mayor powers, aside from everything else, are a significantly bad idea.”

Ford’s team sold strong-mayor powers as a fix for the housing crisis. Some Ontario mayors have said the powers are a helpful tool to build homes and infrastructure and to bypass bureaucratic inertia.

Mayors have written to Ford and Housing Minister Rob Flack to reject the powers or to ask the province to repeal the legislation entirely. They say it erodes democracy, risks abuse of power, and even “veers dangerously close to authoritarian governance.”

These rejections have not been accepted, however: the strong-mayor legislation does not provide a way to opt out.

The pledge set a home-building target that he says he and town staff consider unrealistic, adding there is no evidence the legislation has helped build homes.

But his objections run much deeper. He says he believes strong mayors’ ability to override council breeds disenfranchisement, and that the ability to fire senior staff undercuts public servants’ ability to provide independent, professional advice.

The powers are “almost like a virus in the body politic of municipal democracy,” Taylor says.

Taylor, who has been a deputy mayor and mayor of Newmarket for 20 years said he “feels deeply and strongly about municipal governance. I think there’s a lot of reasons to be proud of and to even believe that municipal governance is a better-functioning form of governance than the other levels. I see that slipping away, and it upsets me.”

Killarney Mayor Michael Reider wrote in one such letter addressed to Flack in June 2025, a month after the powers were granted to him.

“I firmly believe that the concentration of authority within the office of the Mayor undermines democratic governance, diminishes the role of duly elected municipal councillors, and erodes the principles of transparency, accountability, and equal representation.”

Stratford City Councl filing a court challenge that argues strong-mayor powers violate the Canadian charter.

The City of Stratford took an even more drastic step: filing a court challenge that argues strong-mayor powers violate the Canadian charter, and asks a judge to strike them down.

“Democracy, including its central premise that a majority of elected officials are required to participate in and be responsible for decision-making, and the rule of law are fundamental values of Canadian society,” the application reads.

Strong-mayor laws “erode local accountability” and bypass “the safeguards, checks and balances to ensure democratic decision making.”