A Statement by St. Catharines City Councillor Bruce Williamson
Posted April 16th, 2026 on Niagara At Large
St. Catharines City Councillor Bruce Williamson
A Brief Foreword Note from Doug Draper at Niagara At Large – The following is an excerpt from a statement St. Catharines City Councillor Bruce Williamson delivered at an April 13th city council meeting and shared with this news and commentary site for possible use here.
I have decided to post it because, in this news commentator’s view, it is an example of speaking truth to power by a municipal representative with a long record of putting the common good first – something we need far more of on our municipal councils in this region.
By the way, the word “turkeys” in the first sentence of Councillor Williamson’s statement is a reference to Premier Doug Ford recently saying (and I paraphrase) that Niagara’s municipal councillors can be counted on to vote in favour of reducing the number of seats on their councils about as much as turkeys could be counted on to vote in favour of Thanksgiving.
Now here is the Statement from St. Catharines City Councillor Bruce Williamson (The information inside brackets was put there for clarification purposes by Niagara At Large).-
“The disrespect and contempt Doug Ford has shown for local democracy is summed up by him labelling elected municipal representatives across Niagara as “turkeys”.
I find this personally insulting and degrading to the many terrific councillors I have served with in the past and continue to work with today who had the courage to allow their name to stand for election to serve their neighbours in local government. In turn, it is a repudiation of the people in this community, “the little guys” Ford claims to care about.
St. Catharines Council, like most in Niagara, simply requested that any governance review process include consultation with local residents to have their voices heard and that it be based on facts, evidence and thoughtful analysis.
The precise opposite happened; no one was consulted much beyond the three mayors (St. Catharines Mayor Mat Siscoe, Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati and Welland Mayor Frank Campion) who endorsed him during the 2025 election and to whom he conferred strong mayor powers. His own government’s expensive study from 2021 was buried and never released to the public.
As part of this charade, misleading documents with official city logos went out inferring that this council and others (in Niagara) supported these draconian, anti-democratic changes.
The reality is that this was entirely about circumventing the truth to enable Doug Ford to even more blatantly satisfy the demands of his well-heeled cronies and campaign contributors. These centralized decisions are self-serving by concentrating power into the hands of a few mayors and by a Niagara Regional Chair who (in the case of the Chair) will be appointed by him.
This is an authoritarian play that is contrary to the public interest and will make way for a new cabal where the strings will be pulled even more directly from the Premier’s Office inQueens Park.”
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Bruce Williamson, Councillor, City of St. Catharines
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