Here’s the big changes to mayoral powers! This Bill affects the City of Toronto Act and the Municipal Act, but the changes are the same for both.
Update: September 8, 2022
Bill 3 passed its third reading, PCs voting in favour and everyone else voting against.
Update: August 31, 2022
Bill 3 returned from committee with no amendments and will be going on to its third vote.
Update: August 18, 2022
Bill 3 went up for a vote on its second reading and passed, 72 For, 25 Against. It will now be sent to committee before returning for its third reading and amendments.
It looks like all the PC members voted in favour, and everyone else voted against.
Author’s Note: I’m going to have to come up with a better way to track the exact details here, the vote records on the provincial website only list the last names for the MPPs and which way they voted. That’s significantly less helpful than the federal counterpart which lets me view a party affiliated summary as well.
City of Toronto Act/Municipal Act
So first up it will allow the mayor to give direction directly to city employees, specifically in regards to research, advice to the council, or instructions to carry out duties. These instructions do have to be in writing.
The mayor will be able to appoint a chief administrative officer to look after city operations.
The mayor will be able to determine the organizational structure of the city, as well as the hiring of any heads of organizations. There are exceptions here, the mayor has no power over the employment of: The clerk or deputy clerk, a treasurer or deputy treasurer, an integrity commissioner, an ombudsman, an auditor general, a registrar, a chief building official, a chief of police, a fire chief, a medical officer of health, or other officers or heads of divisions required to be appointed under this or any other Act. These new employment powers work regardless of when someone started working.
The mayor gains the ability to appoint the chairs and co-chairs of any local boards.
The mayor gains the ability to appoint/dissolve any committees, the chairs and vice-chairs of committees, and to assign functions to committees.
Interesting bit here, Bill 3 allows the Lieutenant Governor in Council to make an Order in Council to declare a provincial priority. This has two effects on the mayor’s new powers. First, despite any procedure by-laws that the City may have, if the mayor decides that a particular matter could advance a provincial priority they have the ability to force the council to consider that matter in a meeting. So it doesn’t matter what’s on the agenda, if the province has declared it a priority the mayor can put everything else on hold. In addition to this, if the mayor thinks that any by-law would interfere with a provincial priority they can submit written notice that they’re going to veto that by-law. This needs to be submitted within two days of the council voting in favour of the by-law. The council can override the veto within 21 days if two-thirds of the council vote to do so. The mayor also gets to participate in this vote as a member of the council.
Bill 3 also has instructions for filling the vacant seat of a mayor. Not much in this part, either hold a by-election or, if the vacancy is after March 31 on an election year, appoint a stand-in.
Any powers exercised in this bill, exercised legally and in good faith, can’t be quashed or open to review in whole or in part by any court on the grounds of unreasonableness.
The mayor gets full power over the the budget. They get to propose the budget, and can veto any decisions the council makes. Council has the ability to override the veto as stated above.
And finally there’s some housekeeping that gives the Province the ability to create regulations regarding anything listed above.
Municipal Conflict of Interest Act
Just some housekeeping here to clarify that the mayor can’t use their new powers in situations where there would be a conflict of interest.
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