They were meant to speed up housing construction in Ontario, but new research suggests strong-mayor powers are hardly ever used that way.
The Toronto Star analyzed more than 4,200 strong-mayor decisions and found Ontario mayors rarely use the powers granted in 2022 by the Ford government’s Strong Mayors, Building Homes Act to expedite new housing in their communities.
That has been the case in Haldimand County, where Mayor Shelley Ann Bentley used strong-mayor powers 24 times over the past year, mostly to approve bylaws or delegate decision-making authority back to council.
But Bentley also used the enhanced powers to shuffle senior staff last year, sometimes to controversial effect:
- June 11: Appointed Scott Luey, former chief administrative officer (CAO) of Port Colborne, as Haldimand’s new general manager of community safety and wellness.
- June 27: Fired Haldimand CAO Cathy Case. The mayor was not legally required to give reasons for her decision and opted not to explain why she ousted Case, a 30-year civil servant.
- July 10: Appointed treasurer Mark Merritt as interim CAO.
- Sept. 22: Authorized councillors to choose a new CAO from a shortlist of two candidates.
- Nov. 18: Rescinded Merritt’s appointment after council hired Michael Di Lullo as permanent CAO.
Some councillors suspect Bentley fired Case as retribution for the former CAO and her Norfolk County counterpart launching an investigation into a leak of confidential documents during last year’s provincial election campaign.
The leak was eventually traced to the Haldimand mayor’s office and Bentley was fined four months’ wages, but she denied firing Case as payback.
Bentley, who is running for re-election this fall, did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
But the mayor has been vocal in calling for infrastructure improvements to precede new housing construction, and she opposes a developer-led proposal to build 15,000 homes near the Stelco steelworks in Nanticoke.
In 2023, she called strong-mayor powers “a dictatorship from the province” and said the $3 million promised from the Ford government if the municipality met the province’s “arbitrary” housing target was “an insult.”
Haldimand councillors voted to decline the powers, but Bentley changed her mind and quietly accepted them when the province offered again in 2025.
At a heated public meeting in the wake of Case’s firing, lawyer John Mascarin, an expert on strong-mayor powers, told councillors Haldimand was stuck with the “atrociously dangerous” strong-mayor powers until the province changes the law.
Until then, Mascarin said, “you won’t be able to do anything about these powers.”
Laying the groundwork for housing in Norfolk
Norfolk councillors twice voted to reject strong-mayor powers in 2023.
Mayor Amy Martin, a past critic of strong-mayor powers, was eager to hit the Ford government’s housing target and access provincial infrastructure funding. She promised to delegate as many powers as legally allowed to council or Norfolk’s CAO, but councillors remained concerned about subverting local decision-making.
The province imposed the powers on Norfolk in 2025.
In February, Martin — who is currently on leave and will not seek re-election — used her expanded authority to direct staff to expedite a bylaw that would bring industrial land in Courtland and farmland in the south end of Waterford into Norfolk’s settlement boundary.
At the time, Martin said both applications had stalled at the provincial level and she used strong-mayor powers “to facilitate this process in a timelier manner.”
“This is endorsing a council decision that was already made,” the mayor said. “It’s actually a great way to use the tool to expedite the work that council has already approved. We’re not changing anything.”
Use of powers ‘rare’ — but for how long?
The Star’s analysis largely matches research into the use of strong-mayor powers conducted by the Canadian Municipal Barometer, a federally-funded academic research partnership “that aims to understand and improve local democracy in Canada.”
In a survey of municipal politicians across Ontario, researchers found 60 per cent of mayors and councillors reported “their relationship hasn’t changed” after strong-mayor powers were instituted, said Shanaya Vanhooren, a Norfolk-based post-doctoral research fellow with the group.
But some councillors are “more skeptical” of mayors who use their expanded powers.
“They’re more likely to say the mayor’s use of the powers may be personal or political acts, describing them as publicity stunts or trying to increase their power at the expense of councillors,” Vanhooren told The Spectator.
That was seen in Haldimand, where “there was a lot of public backlash” to Bentley’s decision to fire the former CAO, she noted.
Vanhooren said it is “actually pretty rare” for mayors to use their powers instead of delegating them, with mayors only “activating” strong-mayor powers in 17 per cent of the decisions her group studied.
But that could change.
“The opportunity’s still there,” Vanhooren said. “For instance, we’re coming up on a municipal election. What happens when we have mayors who are increasingly willing to use the powers?”
The public-policy expert said she is worried about the danger of future mayors becoming subordinate to Queen’s Park and “making policy that fits with an ideological provincial government and maybe less in the interest of their local communities.”
“I wouldn’t say that we’ve necessarily seen that now, but it certainly seems to be a possibility,” Vanhooren said.
By J.P. Antonacci, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Original Published on Jun 01, 2026 at 07:07
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