THUNDER BAY – The first public meeting of Thunder Bay’s new city council will feature plenty of pomp and circumstance and little serious debate, as the city’s freshly-elected mayor and council are officially inaugurated on Monday.
The honeymoon period won’t last long.
The council elected Oct. 24, featuring five newcomers, is set to make crucial decisions on an inflation-year budget, a proposed indoor turf facility, and a Designated Truck Route within months.
Council will also develop a strategic plan early in the New Year, laying out its major priorities for the 2022-2026 term.
Those early decision points can prove crucial for the direction of council’s four-year term, suggested city manager Norm Gale.
“City council will be grappling with some very heavy and very difficult files in short order,” he said. “Paramountly, the first two will be the budget and the strategic plan. These are arguably the most important decisions that council will make.”
Gale warned council is likely to face hard choices in the budget, in particular.
“This year’s budget is an outlier – it’s not usual, and external and internal factors have made it very difficult,” he said. “Council will be challenged in finalizing this year’s budget.”
The draft budget prepared by city staff has not yet been released, but in one example, the Thunder Bay Public Library recently said city staff will recommend a 15 per cut to its capital budget in 2023.
Aside from the budget and strategic plan, council will make decisions on a number of other major issues in the coming weeks and months.
In December, it will hear from staff about the impacts of the Ford government’s sweeping housing legislation, Bill 23, which Gale said “will have profound implications for municipalities.”
City staff have expressed concern the bill will limit public input into development decisions and download duties from conservation authorities to municipalities.
In January, council will receive a staff report outlining potential next steps on an indoor turf facility.
And in the spring, Gale said, the issue of a Designated Truck Route, endorsed in principle by the previous council, will return to city hall.
“It’s a decision of council that there will be a Designated Truck Route,” he said. “That decision stands. This current council will consider how to implement a bylaw on that, or they may choose not to proceed with a DTR, and there’s processes for that.”
Those concerns may not be top of mind Monday, when councillors will take their oath of office and are officially sworn in at city hall. The inauguration ceremony is largely symbolic – the new council has held decision-making powers since Nov. 15.
Monday’s meeting will feature an inaugural address from Mayor Ken Boshcoff and remarks from past mayors including Bill Mauro, Keith Hobbs, and Jack Masters (only Mauro is expected to attend in person).
It will begin with a Royal Canadian Legion colour party, followed by an opening smudge by elder Sheila DeCorte and a song by Orville Councillor of Naicatchewenin First Nation.
This year’s inauguration includes a greater acknowledgement of the city’s location on the traditional territory of Fort William First Nation, said city clerk Krista Power.
“We’ve worked extensively with our Indigenous relations office to ensure that component, that history is captured within the inaugural meeting,” she said. “We will have inclusion of Indigenous elders, some ceremony, and opportunity for a smudge, which sets us off in a good way for this term of council.”
The 13-member council includes no Indigenous members, while 14 per cent of the city’s population is Indigenous, according to the 2021 census.
The only real item of business for Monday’s meeting is a minor one, setting a schedule for acting mayors for the coming year, with each of the 12 councillors rotating through the role on a monthly basis, able to step up for ceremonial and compliance duties in Boshcoff’s absence.
The new council has met in a series of closed-session orientation meetings over the past two weeks.
That training included a greater focus on procedure, including the city’s procedural bylaw, which Power said responded in part to challenges in the previous term.
“I think one of the things we saw in the last term of council on rare occasion was a bit of disjointment, a little bit of council being frustrated with the procedural process, and we certainly saw that around the DTR,” she said. “So trying to help them understand why the process is created the way that it is – and it is their council process.”
There will be some further training going forward, including with the integrity commissioner and the planning department in the first 120 days of the term, said Power.
