(September 2026)

The top 10 key changes needed to make Ontario municipal governments best-practice, fully democratic governments (meaning honest, ethical, transparent, representative and waste-preventing) are listed below (and similar changes are needed to the key democracy laws that apply to municipalities across Canada).

Cities and towns across Canada also have similar loopholes and gaps in key democracy laws, and weak enforcement of those laws, which makes them all vulnerable to authoritarian, dishonest, unethical, secretive and wasteful political leaders and their cronies, and also vulnerable to foreign interference.

The additional change needed in Ontario (and anywhere else it exists) is to cancel the strong mayor’s system that the Ford PC Party government enacted because it is fundamentally undemocratic, especially the part that allows the mayor and minority of councillors to make major changes.

1. Enact an honesty-in-politics bylaw that allows for complaints to a fully independent commissioner about broken promises, and about dishonest statements made anywhere (including at council, and during elections) by anyone involved in politics, with mandatory high fines as the penalty;
2. Create broad-based, citizen-funded and -driven watchdog groups in each mid-sized to large-municipality by requiring all hydro and water utilities, and the municipality when sending out property tax bills, to include a notice in their mailings and emails to households inviting them to join and fund citizen watchdog groups for hydro/water service, and for watching over government spending and ethics (as an umbrella group for ratepayer associations);
3. Establish a Public Appointments Commission (preferably at the provincial or regional level) whose members are not connected to any councillor, and require the Commission to conduct public, merit-based searches and choose a short list of a maximum of 3 candidates for all council appointments (especially watchdogs), with the council required to choose from the short list;
4. Enact a meaningful public consultation law provincially that requires all municipalities to undertake a broad, in-depth public consultation with voters before any council or municipal institution makes a significant decision;
5. Limit individual political donations to $100 (as in Quebec) and establish donation-matching public funding, and limit third-party interest group spending on advertising and campaign activities (including on issue-related ads) to a low amount per voter that the third -party represents (and set a very low amount that any individual acting as a third party is allowed to spend, given they only represent one voter);
6. Enact an actually effective bill to strengthen and close loopholes in Ontario’s Municipal Conflict of Interest Act (because the Ford government’s very weak Bill 9 which came into force recently is not enough to ensure ethical decision-making by municipal councils and strong mayors), to require councillors, their staff, municipal staff and local board officials and staff to only make truthful statements; and prohibit them from participating in any way in any decision-making process if they have even the appearance of a conflict of interest (even if the decision applies generally); and prohibit them from communicating with anyone in the municipal government (or advising others who to communicate with) about their decisions for 5 years after they leave their position, and; to make Ontario’s Integrity Commissioner the enforcer of the Act, and; establish high penalties for violators, and; require the Commissioner to issue a public ruling on every situation they review and to impose a penalty for every violation;
7. Enact a bill that strengthens and closes loopholes in Ontario’s Lobbyists Registration Act (LRA) to require councillors, their staff, municipal staff and local board officials and staff to disclose in an online registry any communication they have with anyone with regard to decisions they are making (to close the secret lobbying loopholes that now exist in municipalities across Ontario (except in Toronto, Ottawa and a few others); and to prohibit lobbyists from helping with political campaigns or fundraising (or, if they do, from lobbying until after then next election); and to make Ontario’s Integrity Commissioner the enforcer of the LRA for municipalities, and; establish high penalties for violators, and; require the Commissioner to issue a public ruling on every situation they review and to impose a penalty for every violation;
8. Change the voting system to a ranked ballot system with a runoff for the top candidates, to ensure that everyone who is elected is supported the most by the most voters;
9. Strengthen the municipal access-to-information law (Ontario’s MFIPPA) by closing loopholes, applying it to all government and government-funded institutions, requiring that records of all decisions and actions be disclosed regularly, and to establish high penalties for violators, and ensure effective whistleblower protection for people who reveal wrongdoing in government or by councillors, and;
10. Reduce waste by empowering Ontario’s Auditor General and/or Financial Accountability Officer (FAO) to: audit projected municipal spending to ensure truth-in-budgeting; order changes to clean up the financial management of any municipal institution, and; penalize violators of spending or procurement rules.