Municipality of Chatham-Kent Council has approved reducing its size to 15, which includes 14 Councillors and one mayor.
Council also approved re-drawing the ward boundaries across Chatham-Kent, which includes dividing the city of Chatham into three separate wards.
The decision was made at the Monday, February 10, 2025 Council meeting, after months of consultation, meetings, surveys and work provided by consultant, StrategyCorp.
West Kent Councillor Melissa Harrigan made a successful motion to direct administration to bring a by law of “Option 1”, which was the preferred option from StrategyCorp, to the March 3, 2025 council meeting for voting.
“For a number of months now, we have engaged with Strategy Corps, a firm with specialized expertise in municipal governance, who have facilitated a review of legislation, summarized best practice in municipal representation, and facilitated community engagement to make recommendations for a council composition that would better reflect CK’s population distribution, while also ensuring that ward boundaries reflect the communities individuals are connected to,” Harrigan shared on social media, following the meeting.
“Our council voted to reduce the size of Council to fifteen members. This requires each ward to be stretched a little bit, to account for less Councillors.”
Chatham Councillor Marjorie Crew entered an amendment for the adjustment of the three wards in Chatham to be adjusted to continue as an at-large ward. However, this motion failed.
North Kent Councillor Jamie McGrail entered a successful motion, which slightly altered the new ward 4 boundary, extending the ward to Electric Line instead of Marsh Line. This adjustment essentially puts Mitchell’s Bay in the new ward 4, as opposed to being included in the new ward 5 with Wallaceburg.
The map below is the new ward boundaries for Chatham-Kent (not incorporating the adjustment from McGrail’s motion):
Each new ward will be represented by two Councillors each, except for the new ward 4 and ward 3, which will be represented by one.
“As discussed in our previous reports, StrategyCorp recommends the Municipality adopt a Council size of 15,” StrategyCorp said in their report.
“The preferred three ward model (for Chatham) delivers a significant improvement over the status quo towards voter parity, and we have heard no significant criticism of its proposed boundaries. Since amalgamation, Chatham has been structured as a single ward with six Councillors. While this is permissible under the Municipal Act, it is an outlier among Ontario municipalities. There are few Ontario comparators and little guidance exists from the Courts and Tribunals on how the number of Councillors elected per ward impacts the ability of an electoral system to deliver ‘effective representation.'”
Judy Smith, Chatham-Kent’s Municipal Clerk, had said at previous meetings once the by law is approved by Council, the changes to the size of Council and the adjusted ward boundaries, would be in effect for the 2026 Municipal election.
Despite being up for debate multiple times over the years, Chatham-Kent’s Council composition or ward boundaries had never been adjusted since amalgamation in 1998.
Read StrategyCorp’s full report, here.
