Thunder Bay, Ont., city council enters 'lame duck' period next week ahead of fall election

Kris Ketonen · CBC News

· Posted: Aug 18, 2026 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: August 18

Thunder Bay City Council will soon be entering its "lame duck" period, with its decision-making power limited until after the 2026 municipal election.

The nomination period for the election closes on Aug. 21, and under provincial legislation, there are certain things the current council can't do after that, said 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."

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"Standing committees would function as they as they normally do," he said. "Decisions that are made by standing committee aren't binding."

Walters said all nominations will be certified by the city on Aug. 24. The municipal election itself will take place on Oct. 26.

And there are guaranteed to be a few new faces in council chambers come the next term, with current councillors Kristen Oliver, Dominic Pasqualino, Shelby Ch'ng, and Michael Zussino, as well as Mayor Ken Boshcoff, having announced they're not seeking re-election 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 asked about council's achievements during the last four years. "I ran on growth and getting jobs here."

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"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 of more growth planned for the future."

Oliver agreed, and added that in her ward, Westfort, she's proud of the work done 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 the the road paved on Frederica through the business area, super happy about that, and then obviously the work getting Victoriaville down and the redevelopment of the south core, which will obviously have a huge impact for Westfort as well."

On the other side, Pasqualino said trying to address issues with city transit was a struggle.

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"I would have hoped that the transit would have come along a lot better than it did," he said. 'I think that there's a large population of the community that depends on it, and we haven't been as dependable as what we should have been on that."

"It is a difficult issue," he said. "There was COVID when I first started on, and there's the safety of the drivers and the passengers. And it's been really a struggle for me personally. I think that we should have been able to achieve more on that."

For Oliver, a major challenge was the temporary shelter village, which is currently being constructed at the end of Alloy Place, at what's known as the Hillyard lands. However, council went back-and-forth on several locations before selecting the site.

"It just seemed like we were really chasing our tails for a bit on that one," Oliver said. "It was incredibly frustrating as someone who saw this as being a project that was really going to enhance people's lives, and really work best for the entire community."