Latest news with #StrongMayorPowers
CTV News
08-08-2025
- Politics
- CTV News
Former Dartmouth mayor says Halifax council is ‘most dysfunctional' she's ever seen
Halifax council has been at odds over several recent topics, including possible strong mayor powers. Halifax council has been at odds over several recent topics, including possible strong mayor powers. Gloria McCluskey's political career spanned 23-and-a-half years, including serving as the last mayor of Dartmouth in the early 1990s. She still closely follows every level of government and watches every Halifax Regional Municipality council meeting. 'This is the most dysfunctional council that I have ever seen, and I served on a few of them,' she tells CTV News Atlantic. She says people should pay attention to what's happening at city hall. 'People should care because it's costing us a lot of money to keep them there, number one,' she says. 'Number two: (council is) in charge of whatever happens in this municipality.' Cathy Deagle Gammon, a two-term city councillor representing Waverley-Fall River-Musquodoboit Valley, says things haven't been as smooth as she had hoped with this council so far. 'It has been bumpier and we need to be honest about that,' she says. 'Everybody that's looking at it can see the bumps. I think councillors and the mayor feel them a little bit more. 'Sometimes we're storming and forming all at the same time.' Still, she's confident council will evolve and iron out the kinks. Halifax City Hall Halifax City Hall is pictured. (Source: Callum Smith/CTV News Atlantic) An early motion that Mayor Andy Fillmore campaigned on – to de-designate Halifax's homeless encampments – was voted down. He's also been on the losing side for a motion about the Windsor Street Exchange and more recently, Morris Street's bike lane design. Last month, Fillmore wrote to Municipal Affairs Minister John Lohr, saying 'a sobering conclusion has emerged' nine months into council's mandate. 'In our current governance model, the disconnection between democratic choice at the ballot box and decision-making at city hall is hindering rather than helping delivery of the priorities for which Halifax residents voted,' he said, noting that 'structural change' to Halifax's governance model should be considered. The longtime politician previously said he did not 'fully understand the barriers' to fulfilling his mandate until he was elected. 'We're a work in progress' Speaking to reporters last Tuesday, Fillmore was asked how the current council is functioning. 'We're a work in progress,' Fillmore said. 'I think we're figuring our working together out.' That was after a contentious rescission of council's design of Morris Street bike lanes – overturning their previous decision to go with one-way traffic and two-way bike lanes. It was a move Fillmore opposed – and one that was threatened to be overturned by the province. 'The moment that we're in, the change that this moment requires, would result in a fractious moment, the fractious moment that we're experiencing,' Fillmore said. 'This moment is calling for us to change and to do things differently.' Janet Steele, a first-term councillor who represents Timberlea-Lakeside-Beechville-Clayton Park and Wedgewood, has a different perspective on how things have gone so far. 'I think council is operating fairly well,' she says. Steele points to some achievements that council has hit so far, including holding a flat tax rate and eventually charting a path forward with the Windsor Street Exchange redevelopment. But she admits she was caught off guard when Fillmore, a former city planner, said he didn't fully understand the barriers he would face in the mayor's chair. 'Democracy is messy,' Steele says. 'It takes a while to get to a decision. So, I find it surprising that he did not understand the role of mayor.' Halifax City Hall Halifax City Hall is seen on Aug. 8, 2025. (Source: Callum Smith/CTV News Atlantic) She says there's room for further collaboration from the mayor, particularly when it comes to giving notice about motions he's bringing to council. She believes the Morris Street controversy is being used as a 'wedge issue.' 'It's a wedge issue designed to give the impression that Mayor Fillmore requires strong mayor power,' she says. 'I see all the noise and drama around that, purposely designed to say, 'Oh, I can't get what I want… I can't achieve it with the current governance model.'' Strong mayor powers Premier Tim Houston has said discussions have been ongoing around giving Fillmore additional power, though those powers haven't exactly been defined. 'We want people at all levels of government to have the tools necessary to properly govern,' Houston reiterated when asked about the issue on Tuesday. 'It's a discussion that's happening, for sure, but there's no more movement than the discussion.' 'Politics is about people,' Houston said in an interview with CTV News Atlantic's Todd Battis on July 17. 'We can't let agendas and personal conflicts have a negative impact on people.' Deagle Gammon says if strong mayor powers were raised on the campaign trail from either the mayor or the premier, she wouldn't have put her name on the ballot box. But she says it's important to acknowledge that few details have been shared about what powers could be granted. Some have suggested that, if implemented, Nova Scotia's model could replicate Ontario's policy for some of its municipalities. According to that province's website, those powers can include: ability to appoint a CAO ability to hire municipal division heads ability to create and appoint chairs of committees veto power and council override -With files from CTV News Atlantic's Sean Mott Gloria McCluskey Former Dartmouth mayor Gloria McCluskey is critical of the current Halifax council. (Source: Callum Smith/CTV News Atlantic) For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page
CTV News
06-06-2025
- Politics
- CTV News
Local NDP MPP tables motion to repeal Strong Mayor Powers legislation
The New Democrat MPP for Windsor West has tabled a motion to repeal the Strong Mayor Powers legislation. Lisa Gretzky tabled the motion on Wednesday in the Ontario Legislature, urging the Doug Ford government to rescind these powers that were granted in 2022. Windsor was granted strong mayor powers in 2023. Recently, the powers were expanded to dozens of additional municipalities, including all of the Essex County municipalities, despite indication locally that they did not want these powers. At the end of April, Windsor city council voted 8-3 in favour of sending a letter to Premier Doug Ford requesting that Windsor be removed from the list of municipalities designated under the Strong Mayor legislation. These powers were put in place to offer tools to help heads of council cut red tape and speed up the delivery of key shared municipal-provincial priorities such as housing, transit, and infrastructure in their municipalities. Gretzky said these powers don't make local cities stronger - they make them less democratic, and they silence the diverse voices of elected representatives. 'We have people in our communities, constituents and elected officials, that truly believe in democracy,' she said. 'They believe that city councillors are elected to represent constituents and bring their voice and their vote to the council table, and that majority rule should be respected.' She said while these powers were put into place to help speed up priorities such as housing, those targets still aren't being met. 'The province is not even meeting its own housing targets, even though they are giving these powers to municipalities, and basically trying to point the finger at municipalities and saying, 'well it's your responsibility, we've given you strong mayor powers, now build housing'. We're not meeting housing targets; we're not building the appropriate housing that people need in our community,' Gretzky said. She said the concern also lies with how future mayors will handle these powers. 'It really has opened the door for at some point a mayor to potentially overstep those powers and abuse those powers. This is not about good governance; this is about executive overreach. We need to be returning decision making back to the councillors and reinstating majority rule,' she added. Gretzky said that the provincial government has decided to shut the legislature down for an extended period of time, meaning MPPs won't be sitting until late October. She said this motion likely won't be debate on until early 2026 - but that the government can pause these powers if they decide to do so before they sit again. Strong mayor powers came into effect for the 169 additional municipalities across Ontario on May 1. - Written by Meagan Delaurier/AM800 News.
