Redekop warns Ford’s regional overhaul sidelines smaller towns

“The Premier was in a fever to reduce the size of regional councils.”

That is how Mayor Wayne Redekop described Ontario’s plan to cut Niagara Regional Council from 32 members to 13.

Redekop warned that Queen’s Park is moving to install an appointed chair with the power to veto decisions made by elected mayors, calling it “undemocratic,” and that smaller municipalities like Fort Erie stand to lose the most.

The province’s Better Regional Governance Act, 2026, announced April 2, would replace all 32 directly elected regional councillors with the 12 lower-tier mayors and a single chair appointed by the provincial government.

The change would be the most significant restructuring of Niagara’s regional government since 1970, when the province collapsed 26 municipalities and two county governments into the current two-tier model. For Fort Erie, which currently holds two seats on the 32-member regional council, the new structure means losing its dedicated regional councillor entirely.

Redekop told Fort Erie Radio on Saturday morning that the province has not released the full legislation, and that several critical details, including the formula for weighted voting, remain unknown. But the broad shape of the proposal already concerns him deeply.

“The people of Fort Erie should be aware of the fact that this is an effort to consolidate power by the premier.”

Under the proposed model, the appointed chair would hold what the province calls “strong chair” powers, similar to authority granted to some Ontario mayors in recent years. At the municipal level, that power was justified as a way to speed up housing approvals. Redekop does not accept the same logic applies to a regional body.

“Appointing a regional chair and giving that person extraordinary powers in order to build houses faster doesn’t even add up. There is no connection between them. So that’s just a smokescreen in my view,” he said.

Niagara Region’s planning functions were largely eliminated in May 2024. The region does not process zoning applications, official plan amendments or development approvals. Its responsibilities cover roads, water and wastewater infrastructure, public health, emergency medical services and social services across Niagara’s 12 municipalities.

The veto power is what Redekop finds most alarming. Combined with weighted voting, it could allow the two largest municipalities and the appointed chair to effectively override every other mayor in a regional council vote.

The province has not yet clarified what the weighting formula will look like, but Redekop outlined one possible scenario: Fort Erie, which currently sends a mayor and one regional councillor, could retain two weighted votes, while St. Catharines keeps seven and Niagara Falls keeps four.

In that scenario, the chair aligned with the two largest cities could determine regional policy even against the unified opposition of the remaining 10 mayors.

“What the premier is going to be doing is he’s appointing unelected chairs to these eight regions, and he’s going to give those chairs the ability to veto decisions made by the majority of the elected mayors who sit on these councils. That seems to me completely bizarre and very undemocratic,” said Redekop.

Redekop spoke with Minister of Municipal Affairs Rob Flack the week of March 25, before the announcement, and raised concerns about whether 12 mayors could realistically absorb the workload of a full regional council.

Of the region’s standing committees, only one is currently chaired by a mayor: Redekop, who chairs the budget committee. He and the mayor of St. Catharines are the only mayors sitting on the transit commission.

“Now we’re going to be asked to take on this additional burden, premised on a belief by the premier that there are too many politicians in Niagara,” he said.

Smaller municipalities in Niagara have fewer internal staff resources to support mayors navigating expanded regional responsibilities. Welland sends two regional councillors, Niagara Falls three, St. Catharines six. Those mayors currently have colleagues to share committee work, field constituent questions and divide up regional responsibilities.

Under the new model, all of that falls to the mayor alone.

Redekop did not sign a March 31 joint letter to Premier Doug Ford from nine of Niagara’s 12 mayors supporting weighted voting. He felt signing it would pre-emptively concede the elimination of directly elected regional councillors before any evidence-based process had taken place.

He had put forward a motion at regional council on March 26 directing Niagara’s chief administrative officer to begin a structured governance review and report back by April 30. The provincial announcement arrived before that review produced anything.

The province has framed the restructuring as a cost-saving measure. Redekop is not persuaded. The savings to regional taxpayers amount to less than one-fifth of one per cent of the regional budget, he said.

“You shouldn’t make government changes based on your belief, which is your ideology. You should be basing them on a process,” he said.

For context, Redekop pointed to two other financial pressures on local property owners that the province has not moved to address. The Community Safety and Policing Act, passed in 2019, added roughly $10 million a year to Niagara’s policing costs, about two per cent annually.

Niagara Health is also expected to approach Fort Erie for a $10.5-million contribution toward the new South Niagara Hospital, which would represent a tax increase of more than 25 per cent for Fort Erie property owners, or roughly 2.5 per cent per year spread over a decade.

Geography matters too, Redekop said. Fort Erie sits at the southern tip of the region, far from the Niagara Falls and St. Catharines axis that dominates regional politics.

“It could be whoever is whispering into the premier’s ear. That is of great concern to Fort Erie because the people mostly whispering into his ear are in the northern part of the region. And Fort Erie, as you know, is in the southern corner of the region and frequently forgotten,” said Redekop.

The Better Regional Governance Act has not yet passed. If it does, the changes take effect ahead of the October municipal election. Nomination day opens May 1, the first day residents can file to run for local office.

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