Strong mayor powers having ‘little to no impact’ on housing, municipal civil servants say

The Ford government is facing calls to overhaul the strong mayor system in Ontario, after municipal civil servants raised concerns about the powers being used to blur political lines and a lack of impact on housing construction in the province.

Premier Doug Ford first introduced the law in 2022, allowing a mayor to appoint the city’s Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), craft the city budget and re-organize the structure of the municipality – without prior approval of city council.

Since then, the powers have been extended to a total of 216 municipalities across the province, with the expectation that mayors would be able to overcome council hurdles while fast-tracking housing and infrastructure development.

“By extending strong mayor powers to these additional municipalities, we are providing mayors every tool at our disposal to empower them to get homes and infrastructure built faster,” Housing Minister Rob Flack said earlier this year.

But a recent survey of chief administrative officers, the head of a municipal government’s civil service, offered a drastically different view of how the powers are being implemented – that non-partisan employees are becoming political, that the powers have created new divisions in council and that the policy has had little impact on housing.

“We lose. The province loses. They created a solution for a problem that didn’t exist,” one CAO said.

The survey, conducted by government relations firm StrategyCorp, compiled anonymous reflections from a sample of 32 CAOs, allowing them to freely discuss the use of strong mayor powers and the concerns about how they’ll be used during the next municipal elections slated for 2026.

“They’re not saying that their existing mayors are for the most part causing trouble,” said Sabine Matheson with Strategy Corp. “What they’re worried about is how it has the potential to change with people who get elected specifically for the purpose of coming in and cleaning house.”

A spokesperson for Municipal Affairs Minister Rob Flack said the government has had “multiple training sessions, attended by hundreds of municipal leaders to provide guidance,” and didn’t offer any clarity on whether the laws will be reviewed.

“Mayors are elected and have the responsibility to deliver results for their community,” the spokesperson said. “This includes ensuring they have a team at City Hall that is working collaboratively to deliver those results. Our government recognizes Mayors know their communities best and we will continue to work in collaboration with all of Ontario’s 444 municipalities to give them every tool they need to build stronger communities.

As strong mayors began to reshape their municipalities, chief administrative officers say they noticed an erosion of the barriers between those who hold elected office and apolitical civil servants.

“The administration is no longer separate from the politics and [the relationship] is just fundamentally changing,” one CAO said in the survey.

Another top civil servant said the strong mayor rules now “forces the CAO to play this political game” or risk losing their job if the mayor is unhappy with advice or the decision making process.

“The ability to terminate many senior staff and the CAO — that can create quieting effects,” one CAO said. “I’ve just decided I’m going to be fired at some point.”

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The administrative officers also expressed concerns that the “lines are blurred” between the CAO and mayors’ offices, leading to some being treated as a direct employee of a political office rather than a non-partisan expert.

“People are starting to move to more of a Chief of Staff role instead of a CAO role due to the strong mayor powers,” a CAO told the survey. “Really, I’m a Chief of Staff right now.”

Minister Flack’s office said “it is the responsibility of the mayor, council, and municipality to implement the strong mayor framework in line with legislation and regulations.”

Despite the law’s intended purpose, civil servants who were surveyed said the strong mayor powers have had “little to no impact” on creating more housing in their municipalities.

In 2022, the Ford government set a target of building 1.5 million new homes by 2031 and introduced the strong mayor powers as a way of streamlining the development approvals process and getting around city councillors who opposed housing developments.

Some CAOs, however, said the new provincial powers haven’t done much to drum up additional construction.

“I don’t know how many of those units that have been built can be directly attributed to leveraging the strong mayor powers, but I would like to see more of an evaluation
Analysis,” One CAO said.

Another CAO said the powers have had the opposite effect.

“When you’ve got an anti-growth and anti-development strong mayor, they’re able to slow things down by using these powers,” the CAO said.

Liberal MPP Stephen Blais pointed to the 27 large municipalities in Ontario that weren’t able to achieve the provincially-imposed housing targets in 2024 as evidence that the powers aren’t working.

“Strong mayor powers have been used 637 times by 46 different municipalities and the vast majority of that has not been to actually implement building housing faster,” Blais said.

The Ford government said the powers have, in their view, “delivered results.”

“In St. Catharines, they are using strong mayor powers to prioritize housing applications,” a spokesperson for Minister Flack said. “In Ajax, they are driving housing projects forward to unlock over 2,400 new units and, in Brampton, they are allowing the advancement of 27 new affordable housing units with Habitat for Humanity.”

As politicians prepare for province-wide municipal elections in 2026, civil servants are quietly expressing concerns about how the strong mayor powers will influence candidates’ platforms.

“Strong mayor powers have caused a new race for mayor,” one CAO told the survey. “I’m already aware of several people who want to run for mayor, some of whom are explicit that they want to use the powers because they don’t like specific staff.”

Another CAO questioned how a municipality would deal with a “rogue mayor” equipped with powers from Queen’s Park.

“When the Mayor is good and well-intended, [strong mayors] works. If they’re not, I could see how this could be a nightmare,” the CAO said.

Sabine Matheson, who focuses on municipal affairs at StrategyCorp, said CAOs were concerned that loyalty to the mayor would be prioritized when appointees are considered.

“Running a municipality is like running a massive department store of public services, everything from the social service side, to the recreational services, to land use planning, to hard infrastructure,” Matheson said.

“It’s a difficult job. It’s not something that you want people who are just pals of the boss coming in and taking over for a few years.”

Matheson said the government should review the Strong Mayor, Building Homes Act to determine whether any part of the legislation should be curtailed.

“[The government] should maybe claw back the ability to fire staff unilaterally and make that be a prerogative of the entire council to put a check and balance on it,” Matheson said.

Matheson also said the province should also stop any plans to extend the powers to additional municipalities while conducting a “sunset review” of the policy.

Blais called on the government to put the powers “on pause” and to evaluate whether strong mayor powers have actually helped move the needle on housing.

“The best mayors in history have achieved the powers associated with the strong mayor legislation by working collaboratively and cooperatively with their councils,” Blais said.

“They effectively attain that power by listening, by working together and by finding common ground.”

Global News asked the Ford government whether it is considering a review of the strong mayor system. The government did not answer the question.