Hey, Who's Running This Town Anyway?

Most of what we know about political leadership we learned on TV. It's wrong and it's hurting our political system.

With only a few months to go until the municipal election, most people are going to the polls with the impression the Mayor runs the city. Nothing could be further from the truth in Halifax.

"Without a Mayor Quimby, our town would really stink. We wouldn't have a tire yard or a midsize roller rink. We wouldn't have our gallows, or our shiny big foot traps. It's not the mayor's fault that the stadium collapsed!”

The Simpsons

All hail to the Figurehead-in-Chief; the ceremonial superstar we never knew we didn’t need.

The Mayor, whoever it turns out to be, does not have the official power to do ANY of the things we want. They can't send a truck out to fix a pothole or add a crosswalk button.

Despite the significance of the position, remarkably little is known about the role of Canadian mayors. The responsibilities of mayors in Canada are “vague”( Lightbody 2006, 156) and “generally quite unclear” (Sancton 1994, 175). The Canadian Political Science Association observes There is no ‘job description’ for mayors.

The Mayor is not the boss of the city. The mayor DOES NOT hire or fire anyone.  No one reports to the mayor. They don't write or sign cheques. They don't set policy or even vote on policy except in the rarest of circumstances. They don't even speak at council except under special conditions.  They don't decide the budget, the business plan, or any element of how the city works. They sure don't get to decide the 'vision' or strategy for the city. Most importantly, the council does not work for or report to the mayor.

In fact, the word "responsibility" is not in the Mayor's job description because they are not responsible for any aspect of city government.

The mayor's job is completely ceremonial.

They ride floats, cut ribbons, entertain visitors, send out notes to old people, meet, greet, shake hands, listen and ‘learn’.

Specifically, their job description in the Municipal Government Act is clear... they are to chair council meetings, but if they are not available someone else can do it, it doesn't matter.

You can read everything there is to know about the Mayor's position here in the Municipal Government Act and here in the City Charter

The Weak Mayor

In Halifax we have a CAO-Council form of government. It's widely known as a "Weak Mayor" form of government and it has been the most widely used form of city government for over 50 years in North America. But since we get our ideas about government from movies, TV shows and comic books we read when we were kids, we often misunderstand the Mayor's role... and the media sure isn't helping. The mayor has no more official power to effect change in any of these areas than you as an average citizen.

However, because of the misunderstanding of the role of mayor and our form of government, the job has become more mischievous than any other in Nova Scotia. 

It's our own fault. In Weak Mayor governments, the mayor is normally selected by council to conduct ceremonial duties or elected at large but has NO executive duties. In Halifax it is the latter. Yet, our imagination, and sense of hope, imbue them with a false officialdom.

The mayor is of course highly incentivized to play up this misunderstanding. There's a lot of money, power, and prestige at play. At his campaign launch the current mayor said things like "I will work with my council...". It's a line of talk that definitely gives the impression he is the boss.

It will get worse. Today, one of the new candidates for mayor of New Halifax claimed,

“Now is not the time to change direction, second guess our choices, nor the time to build a new plan; we need to go even faster to ensure that everyday people get the help they need.

Far too many in our community are hurting, and worried they are going to be left behind. We need a mayor who is ready, willing, and able to do the hard work now - in order to secure a stable, affordable, brighter future.”

There is SO much wrong with this it’s hard to know where to begin. You just don't often hear a political candidate run on the slogan, "Now is not the time for change," as if clinging to the status quo is the secret recipe for solving our most pressing issues. Maybe it’s the most unintentionally honest thing to be said… Ah, the classic "more of the same" approach. Because nothing says progress like doubling down on a plan that's left people hurting and worried in the first place. Speeding up will not help the car running on empty get to the next gas station. Maybe it's time to rethink, recalibrate, and actually listen to the voices of those being left behind along with the voices of those out ahead with the tax dollars needed to fill the tank, rather than just hitting the gas and hoping for the best. Stability and affordability won't magically appear. We shouldn’t stick with our mistakes just because they cost a lot of money and we’ve spent a long time making them. It's time for real change, not just more of the same old rhetoric.

But more mischievous still is the willful misrepresentation of the Mayor's powers in a council-manager government. Our figurehead mayor, with all the authority of a hall monitor, can’t secure a stable, affordable, brighter future.

What's wrong with this mayoral candidate? Well, let's start with their self-aggrandizing, powermongering fantasy of unchecked power in a council-manager government. This candidate is selling the illusion that the mayor can single-handedly transform the city, ignoring the fact that real authority lies with the city manager and council. By refusing to rethink strategies or adapt to changing circumstances, they're essentially advocating for more of the same failed policies that have left people hurting and worried. Instead of listening and evolving, they want to accelerate down the same misguided path, hoping speed alone will solve systemic issues. This candidate isn't offering real solutions—just empty promises wrapped in an over-confident, but ultimately powerless, package.

Paradoxically, the mayor does have a tremendous amount of power and influence simply because so many believe he does. In political science they call what we have created in our local mayor  'soft power' . In local politics it's bad. It's mischievous, distracting, overly political, and open to the influence of moneyed elites and special interests.

My position is that we should not be having these distracting mayoral elections. We should save the money and effort and do it as Manager - Council governments work best.  From Austin, Texas to Charlotte, North Carolina Mayors are elected or appointed by Council to chair city meetings. Anyone can be appointed Mayor, by the council or by other means, and they ceremonially chair the meetings of council, ride the floats and cut the ribbons. This keeps their more mischievous power in check.

The Dark History of Mayors

It's worth remembering why most cities moved to the Weak Mayor form of government. 100 years ago corruption was rampant in city governments. Political machines fueled by land speculators ran rough over North American cities. In the Progressive Era progressives worked to bring forward new ideas and developed the council-manager form of government. But new studies are worrisome. Osgoode Hall researchers Stanley M Makuch and Matthew Schuman have argued that Canada has effectively legalized corruption in its expanding municipalities.

For the purpose of this election though, what can you do?

My thought is to have a mayor who really knows the system but is not entranced Gollum-like by its power. Someone who can represent our values, and hopes for the future, express our issues as a citizen representative, but not driven mad by the “biggest frog in the puddle” world of municipal politics.

Gollum’s Problem

Gollum’s problem, in a nutshell for anyone who doesn’t remember this Lord of the rings reference, was an all-consuming obsession with the One Ring. He started out as a simple creature, but once he found the Ring, it gradually twisted his mind and soul, giving him an unnaturally long life but filling it with misery. The Ring’s powerful influence over him created a split personality: one side, “Sméagol,” retained some semblance of his former self, with glimmers of goodness and a desire for companionship, while the other, “Gollum,” was completely driven by greed, paranoia, and the desire to reclaim the Job Ring at any cost.

His constant struggle between these two identities, along with the Ring’s corrupting influence, led to his physical and mental deterioration. Gollum’s problem wasn’t just the external obsession with the Ring but an internal battle, where his humanity (or hobbit-like nature) was overshadowed by the darker impulses the Ring amplified. In the end, he couldn’t live without it, which made him a tragic figure, trapped in a never-ending cycle of desire and self-loathing.

It's difficult. City government has bought into, or more accurately has been bought into a GROW GROW GROW "development at all costs" mantra chapter and verse. We effectively have no choices. At best their influence is mischievous. So it's a long game to fix. It starts with speaking out about the soft power and influence of mayors with the goal to bring their influence into check as the Progressive Era reformers intended.

Today, in our mega big-box municipality, most citizens live in natural communities that suffer from Taxation Without Representation. They pay astonishing tax rates on astonishingly ginned-up home values, but their communities have little or no control over how or where the money is spent, how they are governed, or the shape of things to come in their community. Municipal big-boxification grows bureaucracy, but it’s a one-size-fits-none type of arrangement that more than anything else the Mayor is highly incentivized to distract you from.

In this election, you may hear many things but you won’t hear much about:

• A 30-year anniversary review of amalgamation. (There have been none so far.)

• The nebulous need for a directly elected Mayor

• Property Tax transparency and reform

• The business case for perpetual growth

• The rationale for big-ticket items from Convention Centres to Games

• The truth about pyritic slate dumping and harbour infilling

• Any practical limits on the cost of “growth” for growth’s sake

• The cruelty of inducing immigrants to come and do the city’s lowest-paying and most nebulous jobs rather than face the economic questions posed by our time

• Universities, grown too unsustainably big are draining community resources, driving up local costs of living, and diverting funding away from essential public services while producing diminishing returns in educational value.

• The fact that over 70% of HRM is forest but Halifax has no effective forest or wildlife plan

• Public spaces are being constantly transferred to private interests

• Almost every commercial street in the city suffers from “Liminal Blight”

• Bureaucratic growth, as it is in the federal government, is out of control

• We are building a New Halifax that is ugly, unaffordable, unsustainable, unpoliced, and unfairly taxed.

Unless you ask…

#politics #Halifax #election #local