Peterborough mayor Jeff Leal will not seek a second term in the October municipal election.
Leal made the announcement in the boardroom at Peterborough City Hall on Thursday morning (August 20), ending months of speculation about his political future just one day before the nomination period closes.
His decision means his four-year term as Peterborough’s 63rd mayor will conclude when the next city council takes office following the October 26 election.
Six candidates have filed their nomination papers to run for mayor: Michael Eamon, Brian Lumsden, Jacob Méthot, Neil Morton, incumbent Ashburnham Ward councillor Keith Riel, and Rebecca Schillemat.
Trent Radio director of operations Rob Hailman has also announced he will file his nomination papers on Friday (August 21). If he does, he will become the seventh candidate seeking the mayor’s chair. The nomination period closes at 2 p.m. Friday.
Leal, 71, is a Peterborough native and graduate of Kenner Collegiate, Trent University, and the University of Windsor who began his political career when he was elected to represent Otonabee Ward on Peterborough city council in the mid-1980s. Before entering politics, he was employed as a health and safety representative for Coyle Corrugated Containers in Peterborough.
Leal remained on council until 2003, serving as deputy mayor from 1993 to 2003, first under Mayor Jack Doris and then Mayor Sylvia Sutherland.
He first ran provincially as the Ontario Liberal candidate in Peterborough in 1999, narrowly losing to incumbent Progressive Conservative MPP Gary Stewart. In a 2003 rematch, Leal defeated Stewart by more than 6,000 votes.
He was re-elected as Peterborough MPP in 2007, 2011, and 2014. During his 15 years at Queen’s Park, Leal served in several parliamentary assistant roles, as chief government whip, and in the provincial cabinet under then-premier Kathleen Wynne.
Leal was appointed minister of rural affairs in 2013 and became minister of agriculture, food and rural affairs the following year.
His provincial political career ended in 2018 when he finished third behind successful Progressive Conservative candidate Dave Smith and NDP candidate Sean Conway.
The results reflected an election that saw incumbent premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal party recording both the worst result in the party’s 161-year history and the worst result for any incumbent governing party in Ontario, as Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative formed a majority government, the Ontario New Democratic Party led by Andrea Horwath formed the official opposition, and the Liberal party lost official party status.
After four years away from elected office, Leal returned to municipal politics in 2022 when he announced his intention to run as Peterborough’s mayor. He defeated four other candidates — including then-city councillors Henry Clarke and Stephen Wrigt — finishing more than 4,600 votes ahead of Clarke.
Leal’s single term as mayor included several controversial decisions and incidents, particularly during 2025, when kawarthaNOW named him Peterborough’s Newsmaker of the Year.
In February 2025, Leal used his strong mayor powers to expedite Brock Mission’s proposed six-storey transitional housing project at 738 Chemong Road despite opposition from some neighbouring residents and most members of city council.
The decision prompted Northcrest Neighbours for Fair Process to launch a legal challenge. The group ultimately abandoned the case after a judge ordered it to provide $30,000 as security for the legal costs of the city and Brock Mission, later agreeing to pay $22,500 to settle the matter.
In May 2025, the city’s integrity commissioner Guy Giorno found Leal had violated city council’s code of conduct by intimidating councillor Alex Bierk and bullying councillor Joy Lachica in connection with the controversial redevelopment of Bonnerworth Park for pickleball courts.
The report, which also found Leal’s decision-making on the redevelopment did not involve a “private advantage” for him or for his wife, concluded the mayor’s comments to councillor Alex Bierk that “You’re going to regret you ever said that” and “I’ll carve you like a Thanksgiving turkey” — comments made after Bierk mentioned the mayor’s pickleball-playing wife by name during a council meeting — constituted intimidation.
Giorno also found that Leal had bullied councillor Joy Lachica by yelling at her in a city hall corridor following a council meeting on the Bonnerworth Park redevelopment, as well as through his behaviour toward her at a subsequent closed session.
Despite Giorno’s findings, city council meeting as general committee voted 7-3 against penalizing the mayor for breaching city council’s code of conduct, with councillors Bierk, Lachica, and Keith Riel voting against the motion (Leal had recused himself from the discussion and the vote). The arguments in support of the mayor were that he had already been penalized enough through the public shame of the integrity commissioner’s report.
Giorno issued another report in January 2026, this time clearing Leal of breaching council’s code of conduct during an incident in March 2025 while speaking to a business administration class at Trent University, when he used the n-word. The mayor claimed he had been quoting former U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson, but the incident prompted calls for his resignation, a protest outside city hall, and nine complaints to the integrity commissioner.
In his report, while Giorno described the slur as “odious” and said the mayor’s use of the term was “not acceptable,” he found that council’s code of conduct did not apply to speech made in an academic setting where the mayor was not acting in his official capacity. City council later amended the code of conduct to address the use of racial slurs.
Leal also faced criticism over his support for substantial increases to the Peterborough Police Service’s operating and capital budgets, including a 9.22 per cent operating increase for 2026 and a $25.4-million increase to the estimated cost of renovating and expanding the city’s two police stations.
The 2026 municipal election will be held on Monday, October 26. Peterborough voters will elect a mayor, two councillors in each of the city’s five wards, and school board trustees.
With files from Paul Rellinger.
