Thunder Bay City Council is about to enter its “lame duck” phase, which means their decision-making abilities will be limited until after the 2026 municipal election.
The nomination period for the election ends on Aug. 21, and according to provincial laws, there are specific actions that the current council can’t take after that, explained Thunder Bay deputy city clerk Jeff Walters.
“Most of them are finance-related, so they have essentially a spending cap on.. what council can do for decisions,” Walters said. “There’s a few that are human resources matters, so they can’t get rid of certain people or certain positions during the lame duck period.”
LISTEN | Dominic Pasqualino and Kristen Oliver: Thunder Bay Municipal Election:
Superior Morning15:00Dominic Pasqualino and Kristen Oliver: Thunder Bay Municipal Election
On October 26, Thunder Bay along with all other municipalities in Ontario will hold local elections. To discuss their roles and reflect on their work thus far are councillor Dominic Pasqualino and councillor Kristen Oliver, who have decided not to seek re-election.
“Standing committees would function as they as they normally do,” he said. “Decisions that are made by standing committee aren’t binding.”
Walters noted that all nominations will be certified by the city on Aug. 24. The municipal election itself will happen on Oct. 26.
There are sure to be some new faces in council chambers next term, as current councillors Kristen Oliver, Dominic Pasqualino, Shelby Ch’ng, Michael Zussino, and Mayor Ken Boshcoff have announced they’re not running for another term.
“I would say that there’s been a tremendous amount of growth in the city in the last four years,” Pasqualino said on CBC Thunder Bay’s Superior Morning on Monday when discussing council’s achievements over the past four years. “I ran on growth and getting jobs here.”
“It’s a whole team that does that, but at least I would like to think that we didn’t get in the way of it happening. And when I drive around the city, there’s been an enormous amount of growth and there’s a whole bunch more growth planned for the future.”
Oliver agreed and mentioned that in her ward, Westfort, she’s proud of what’s been accomplished in Vickers Park, “making it a four-season destination where people from all over the community are coming.”
“It’s nice to see great use of our amenities that way and providing recreational opportunities that are free or really inexpensive for people to have access to,” Oliver said.
“Of course, the work with the Conservatory even getting Frederica paved through the business area; I’m super happy about that! Then obviously the efforts toward Victoriaville down and redeveloping south core will definitely impact Westfort as well.”
On another note, Pasqualino expressed disappointment regarding challenges faced with city transit.
“I would have hoped that transit would have improved more than it did,” he said. “I think there’s a large population depending on it; we haven’t been as reliable as we should have been there.”
“It is a tough issue,” he remarked. “COVID was present when I first started here; safety for both drivers and passengers has been challenging too. It’s really been difficult personally; I think we could’ve done better.”
For Oliver, a significant challenge has been dealing with constructing a temporary shelter village at Alloy Place known as Hillyard lands; however, council debated various locations before settling on this site.
“It just seemed like we were really chasing our tails for a bit on that one,” Oliver stated.”It was incredibly frustrating as someone who viewed this project as enhancing lives while benefiting everyone in our community.”
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