ATIKOKAN — Rob Ferguson says he’s invoking his strong mayor powers for the first time in an effort to keep the next municipal property tax hike in Atikokan down.
A “mayoral directive” issued on Oct. 21 calls for administration to prepare a draft budget that “maintains the services that town residents and business rely on” and caps all property tax increases at 2 per cent.
“I’ve always wanted to keep taxes at a minimum and … I didn’t always get my way,” Ferguson told Newswatch. “We do have the funds to do things (and) keep doing things, and I want to give the people of Atikokan a little bit of a tax break.”
The directive also calls for the draft budget to be tabled no later than Feb. 1, 2026 for council’s deliberation.
Strong mayor powers were unilaterally granted to 169 municipalities by the Ford government on May 1, with eight Northwestern Ontario communities, including Atikokan, included in that round. Thunder Bay was the first municipality in the region to get them in 2023 — in that round, larger cities received the new powers and became eligible for new funding, if their mayor pledged in writing to meet housing targets.
Mayor Ken Boshcoff did so at the time, against the wishes of Thunder Bay city council.
Among many other things, the new authority gives mayors the ability to propose municipal budgets.
Ferguson said, in his case, it’s about trying to ensure more certainty for residents and business owners — not only in setting a cap, but also putting the early February timeline in place.
“It’s more efficient for the people that are paying the taxes, that they will understand what they will be paying,” he said.
“They have some cost certainty on their properties moving forward and … if we can bring in the lowest, or one of the lowest, tax increases in Northwestern Ontario, I think it bodes very well for the town of Atikokan.”
Ferguson said the local council continues to work well together and, in this case, he exercised strong mayor powers because it concerned an item that was a priority.
“The budget and taxes are very important to people, and we have a very good council — we work very well together — and I don’t always get my way, but it is that the majority dictates how we move forward,” he said.
“But this is something that I felt that I had to take a step forward to bring a low tax increase in.”
Ferguson said he’d like to see the municipality “be more creative,” not only in how it spends money, but also in finding other sources to raise more.
“I think this is something that’s not going to stop us from doing things, but we have to be more creative and more diligent in doing things,” he said.
