While Bradford Mayor James Leduc said in November that he had no plans to use his strong mayor powers, those plans have changed.
On Thursday afternoon, July 18, Leduc issued a mayoral decision to create a new strategic initiatives committee comprised of all members of council, set to meet on the fourth Tuesday of each month (or more if needed), which is intended to replace two previous advisory committees for strategic projects as well as community and traffic safety.
The mayor explained this will reduce the monthly meeting schedule by one, and consolidate those meetings on a day when staff and council are already required to be available, while also including all council members at a “critical time” for the new town hall project and as the traffic mitigation strategy is nearing completion.
“This was done because it creates efficiencies,” Leduc said. “The end result is we’re getting a better system with everybody involved.”
Members of council had been discussing the potential change as far back as April or May, according to the mayor, who said email correspondence followed in June, and he had hoped to work with council to pass the changes during the upcoming Aug. 6 meeting.
While he felt most of council and staff supported the idea, after “a few” councillors expressed they were “adamant” in their opposition, the mayor said he didn’t want to “waste time” arguing at the council table, and decided to use the strong mayor powers so that “we could just carry on with business as usual.”
The province initially granted strong mayor powers to Toronto and Ottawa in September 2022, and gave those mayors authority over various areas of council and staff including hiring or dismissing department heads, determining the organizational structure of the municipality, proposing or vetoing bylaws, and proposing or vetoing the municipal budget, among other things.
For Bradford, the strong mayor powers came into effect on Oct. 31, 2023. They came as part of package deal which allowed the town access to Ontario’s Building Faster Fund, after council adopted a pledge last August to help create 6,500 new homes by 2031 as part of the province’s goal of seeing 1.5 million homes built in Ontario by the same year.
While BradfordToday reached out to all nine members of council for comment, only some responded in time for publication.
Deputy Mayor Raj Sandhu, who was chair of the strategic projects committee, is named as chair or the new joint committee and said he supports the decision.
“How we use this power is really important and I didn’t have an issue, because in my mind, it’s not taking away anything from the councillors, it’s getting all nine involved,” he said. “I’m looking forward to all of us hopefully embracing this and moving forward.”
Sandhu hopes having the full council involved in the “nitty-gritty” of the decisions will negate the need to pull and debate previously debated items, which are sometimes sent back for more information, leading to delays.
A previous council used a similar system in 2010 to expedite work on the library and leisure centre, according to Leduc, who said the “process worked very well,” and based on his experience as then-Ward 1 councillor, Sandhu confirmed “it does help.”
Ward 5 Coun. Peter Ferragine, who was chair of the traffic safety committee, is named as vice-chair of the new joint committee and also supported the merger.
He emphasized the opportunity for all of council to be involved in the new traffic strategy and implementation of a “holistic approach” to safety.
However, Ferragine still would have preferred the idea come to council for discussion and a vote.
“I’m a fan of what was done; I’m not a fan of how it was done,” he said.
Ward 2 Coun. Jonathan Scott said he was of two minds over the use of strong mayor powers to change the committees.
“I understand the logic of wanting all of council involved with strategic projects, particularly new facilities,” he said via email. “However, I liked having a dedicated traffic safety committee to triage concerns and make recommendations.”
Other councillors had strong words of opposition.
Ward 4 Coun. Joseph Giordano suggested council should have been given the opportunity to vote on the matter, and questioned if the change would impact the allocation of revenues from speed cameras, which were earmarked for use by the safety committee.
“In a world where democracy is slowly being chipped away, I have a fundamental issue with strong mayor powers taken and used by anyone. We need less power for elected officials and more for the people,” Giordano said via email. “Regardless the reasoning (big or small), this is an example of a slippery slope where one person’s ideology trumps the majority. That’s not a democracy.”
Ward 6 Coun. Nickolas Harper took issue with the decision being used in a way which does not directly relate to housing and claimed the mayor is trying to “abolish” the safety committee “for being too successful” and “strongly opposing his wishes.”
This spring, the mayor took issue with the committee’s decisions to add speed humps to Veterans Street and Northgate Drive.
“He is tired of losing and being out of touch,” Harper said via email. “I am fed up with his outdated egomaniacal authoritarian leadership style.”
Harper claimed the mayor met “resistance from a lot of parties” during internal correspondence and compared Leduc’s “autocratic leadership ambitions” to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s use of the Emergencies Act in response to convoy protests in 2022.
According to reports, other mayors have also used strong mayor powers for issues not directly related to housing, including Burlington Mayor Marianne Meed Ward reshaping the city’s committee structure, and Aurora Mayor Tom Mrakas directing staff to conduct an in-depth review of council compensation.
In Bradford, the new meeting schedule should reduce the total time it takes for council to approve committee decisions, which could have previously taken as long three weeks, but should now take no longer than seven days before the next regular council meeting.
“We’re going to need to make decisions sooner rather than later, especially when we’re working with outside consultants and architects,” Leduc said, emphasizing the importance of maintaining an opportunity for “sober second thought.”
The first meeting is expected to be scheduled for Aug. 27 to discuss reports from the architect and staff regarding a revised layout to the administrative portion of the new town hall.
