As Peterborough Mayor Jeal Leal’s first use of his provincially legislated strong mayor powers inches closer to a legal challenge, the director of the group bringing that action is appealing to the public for help with legal costs.
A GoFundMe campaign launched by Sarah McNeilly, the sole director of Northcrest Neighbours for Fair Process (NNFP) Ltd., is appealing for $10,000 in donations by June 19. That follows the filing of a motion by the city demanding that she post $10,000 in security for court costs.
“If I don’t raise the funds in time, the case could be dismissed — before a single legal question is heard,” writes McNeilly on the GoFundMe page.
As of Thursday morning (June 12), about 24 hours after McNeilly’s appeal went live — under the title “I challenged Peterborough’s mayor. Now he’s coming after me” — $7,825 had already been pledged by 85 people.
To understand how things got to this point, making the last few weeks “crazy, emotional, terrifying and just really difficult” for McNeilly, some background is required.
Back on February 3, Mayor Leal issued a statement that he would, in deference to a request from Brock Mission, use his strong mayor powers to expedite its development of a six-storey, 52-unit transitional housing building at 783 Chemong Road adjacent to Cameron House, a women’s shelter also operated by Brock Mission.
In doing so, the city’s zoning by-law would be amended and the project would be exempted from existing site plan requirements — a process that ensures development projects comply with municipal policies and minimize negative impacts on the environment and surrounding community.
Under the strong mayor powers of the Municipal Act provided by the provincial government in 2023 to 45 municipalities, including Peterborough, heads of council can propose municipal by-laws under provincial legislation — including the Municipal Act and the Planning Act — if they believe the proposed by-laws could potentially advance the provincial priority of housing.
At the time, Mayor Leal justified his use of strong mayor powers by citing Peterborough’s “critical need for housing,” adding he will do “whatever is within my authority as mayor” to move housing projects forward.
On February 24, Mayor Leal fulfilled his vow during a city council meeting. While seven councillors voted against his motion, three — Gary Baldwin, Kevin Duguay, and Lesley Parnell — supported it. The motion passed just the same, as just one third of council support is required for a strong mayor powers motion to pass.
McNeilly, who lives near the development site, spoke at that council meeting, arguing NNFP’s position that the development doesn’t qualify as “housing” under the rules governing the use of strong mayor powers.
Further, the group argued — and still does — that the building “more closely resembles an institutional facility (in its planned use), therefore falling beyond the scope of strong mayor powers conferred by the Municipal Act.”
Mayor Leal’s use of strong mayor powers in this case forms the basis for NNFP’s legal challenge. McNeilly says any meaningful consultation with neighbours of the project site and the women sheltering at adjacent Cameron House was eliminated from the get-go.
“Allowing major decisions (to be made) with minority council support sets a concerning precedent for governance by exception rather than democratic consensus,” said McNeilly in an April interview with kawarthaNOW, arguing the development should have been subject to entrenched planning oversight and procedures, and then gone before council for approval, much the same as any other development.
And so here we are, with NNFP, represented by McNeilly, asking the Ontario Superior Court to rule whether Mayor Leal’s use of his strong mayor powers is legal in this case.
Pretty straightforward, but then the city tossed a curveball into the mix. On May 27, city solicitor Scott Seabrooke filed a notice of motion for security of costs from NNFP in the amount of $10,000 — “or such amount as this this (sic) Honourable Court may deem just,” according to the motion.
“The Applicant is a shell corporation without operations and it does not have any assets in Ontario or elsewhere to pay the costs of the Respondent,” the motion states. “The Applicant was incorporated for the purpose of insulating Sarah McNeilly from being exposed to a cost award in her personal capacity and thus there is good reason to believe that the Applicant will try to avoid paying any order for costs.”
In addition, the city’s motion claims that NNFP’s legal challenge “was brought for an ulterior motive, namely Sarah McNeilly’s personal opposition” to the section of the Municipal Act that defines strong mayor powers “which she views as undemocratic.”
As an alternative to $10,000 in security costs, the city is requesting an order “piercing the corporate veil” — a legal concept where a court disregards the separate legal entity of a corporation and holds its shareholders, directors, or officers personally liable for the corporation’s actions.
McNeilly, who was upset back in February and still is, is now seeing red.
“The city is pre-emptively saying they will ‘pierce the corporate veil,’ going through the incorporated entity Northcrest Neighbours for Fair Process Ltd. and going for Miss Sarah McNeilly personally,” she says.
“What this means, and it’s another mechanism or tactic if you will, is in order for the application to be heard, this motion has to be decided first. So this has really delayed things, or has the potential to.”
Not helping matters, says McNeilly, was the recent removal of trees at the proposed development site.
“About a week after the city motion was filed, my phone starts exploding, and I’m getting all these email messages from all my neighbours just totally freaking out because every tree on the property was being clear cut,” she says, adding that with its legal challenge pending, NNFP “was under the impression” that such action “is technically unlawful until the matter is settled.”
The first court session dealing with the matter was held on Tuesday (June 10) via Zoom, when McNeilly says the city introduced its motion for security of costs. In response, NNFP’s lawyer brought a request for an injunction on the development.
“The injunction would be for the city not to issue permits,” explains McNeilly.
“It has nothing to do with Brock Mission. They can get permits under the old (existing) by-law and zoning, just not for this one until it’s figured out. The city solicitor responded that would take an ‘awful lot of time’ and that hearing the injunction and the city’s motion first would push back hearing the original application to the next available date in February 2026. Speaking to the rationale of the injunction, our lawyer said that it’s very clear that if we wait until February (2026), the building will be built.”
“You look at all these things combined and it’s hard not to see the tactic. Delay it. Bleed them out. Threaten them financially. They’ll back down. They’ll go away.”
PDF: City of Peterborough’s Notice of Motion – Security for Costs
City of Peterborough's Notice of Motion - Security for Costs
At that first court session, the judge, notes McNeilly, didn’t entertain any delay in the matter, setting a date of June 19 for triage court, which is used to address the scheduling of civil proceedings, particularly for long motions or applications.
“At that time, we’ll be given a much more immediate date to settle first the motion for security of costs so we can then have our application heard. Also, the judge is allowing for our lawyer to submit his request for injunction by letter to whichever judge will overseeing our case.”
That’s where things stand now as it appears the GoFundMe appeal will reach its goal — a show of community support that McNeilly is most heartened by, saying “It’s exactly the boost I needed as the leader of this fight, and it’s what my neighbours needed.”
“Times are tough for everyone right now. I’m really beginning to feel the pressure (but) I don’t want to let my neighbours down. Some of them have made two, three donations (for legal costs). I just can’t keep going to them, asking for money. Every time the city files a new thing, that costs us money for our lawyer to deal with that.”
As McNeilly has made clear since day one, NNFP isn’t taking on Brock Mission or arguing against the need for transitional housing. In fact, she earlier credited Mayor Leal for having “really good intentions” when he exercised his strong mayor powers to expedite the development, but added “He perhaps didn’t have all the information he needed to make a decision like that.”
“It doesn’t matter what it is. This could be a casino. It could be an arena. It could be anything, and I would be against it because of the way it was pushed through. We can’t give up the bedrocks of democracy: due process, public consultation, majority rule. We can’t just freely hand them over because we think there’s an emergency that justifies it.”
Well aware she’s a player in a precedent-setting legal case being watched closely by all the other municipalities whose top elected officials have been granted strong mayor powers, McNeilly feels a responsibility to get this right on the way to her sought outcome of a court-imposed injunction that will ultimately see the proposed development go before council for debate and a vote outside of strong mayor powers.
As for her perception that the city is going after her personally in a bid to see NNFP’s court challenge dropped, her answer is best summed up in three words: bring it on.
“I’m a fighter,” McNeilly affirms. “I’ve never backed down from a bully and I’m not about to start. And it really does put things into perspective. I’ve beaten cancer twice. I’m not afraid of this mayor.”
Stay with kawarthaNOW for updates to this story as they develop.
This story has been updated to modify a quote from Sarah McNeilly, about the city solicitor’s response during the first court session, for accuracy, with the court date also corrected.
