Cam Guthrie is using his Strong Mayor powers to increase the City of Guelph’s operating budget by $650,000 and reinstate snow removal services for bike lanes. The mayor issued the order at city council meeting on Tuesday. “I needed to find a way of figuring out how I could add the service back in, but at the same time does not raise property taxes,” Guthrie explained. “Today, literally in the middle of lunch, I was able to figure it out.” In November, while council was looking for ways to save money in the city’s 2026 budget, they decided to remove $650,000 from the budget that would be used for bike lane winter maintenance. A bylaw was also written up to shut down those lanes down until April. Then, council changed its position. “After that decision and after the first little bit of snowfall that some of us had, some questions about whether or not, operationally, it was going to pan out the way we thought,” Guthrie said. “Then it rested on me to figure out, ‘Okay, how are we going to maybe add that back in?’ But again, not raise property taxes.” Guthrie said, under the Strong Mayor Act, council cannot file a notice of reconsideration on a budget item. The mayor then realized he could make an order to reinstate bike lane winter maintenance without raising taxes. “It was literally an epiphany in the middle of the meeting, an idea that I thought we could do to find a way forward to provide the service and not raise property taxes. And it worked,” Guthrie said. It involved a compromise, specifically, using some of the money that was going to go to 100 per cent renewable energy options for the city and choosing not to hire two new bylaw officers. “We still are dedicated to these types of goals for our climate. But I think at the same time, there has to be choices to be made. And when it came to restoring bike lane maintenance for the winter, we needed to make some compromises,” Guthrie explained. “I think the position that I brought forward to compromise to get this done by reducing in some other areas was welcomed by my council colleagues and welcomed by the community too.” After the mayor’s order was announced, the cyclist known as Guelph’s “Bike Mayor” shared her excitement online. “I’m very happy and also want to cry, because this was a fight,” Andrea Bidgood said. Council still has 21 days to challenge the Strong Mayor order, but after Guthrie presented it in the meeting, council voted not to challenge the decision.
