THUNDER BAY – November 9, 2026
Thunder Bay’s new city council officially takes office on Sunday, November 15, when the term of the council elected on October 26 begins and Maureen (Moe) Comuzzi becomes the city’s mayor. The Clerk’s Office released the official results on October 30, declaring Comuzzi elected with 8,888 votes—946 more than Aldo Ruberto—on 37,539 ballots cast, a turnout of 40.8 percent.
The incoming council she leads is a mix of experience and newcomers. Six sitting councillors are returning. One former councillor is coming back. Five members are sitting on council for the first time. The twelve councillors joining Comuzzi for the 2026–2030 term are Peng You, Mark Bentz, Julie Colquhoun, Jamie Nichols, Kasey (Taylor) Etreni, Andrew Foulds, Jamie Scrimger, Brian Hamilton, Stephen Margarit, John Ongaro, Albert Aiello and Greg Johnson.
That combination—a working majority of experience, one returning voice, and a large class of newcomers—will decide how quickly the new council finds its footing on the files already waiting for it. Comuzzi herself makes a piece of city history. She is just the third woman elected mayor of Thunder Bay since 1970. She capped what she called an “amazing journey” on election night. Her stated aim is to help create a “more connected” city. She takes the helm from the council led by outgoing mayor Ken Boshcoff. Her mandate was earned rather than run away with: a 946-vote margin in a two-way fight at the top of the ballot, in an election where four in ten eligible voters cast a ballot.
Ontarians voted on October 26, but a newly elected council does not hold office the next morning. The official results came from the Clerk’s Office on October 30. The new council’s four-year term of office begins November 15. Until that day, the outgoing council remains the council in law. The incoming members spend the gap in orientation—learning the procedures, the budgets, the legal limits of the job—so that the first meetings of the new term are working meetings rather than introductions.
Those first meetings will not want for work. The city’s 2027 budget process is already under way. The public budget survey closed on November 3. The new council inherits a budget cycle that began before it took office and will have to move quickly to make it its own. Three members of the incoming council, including Comuzzi herself, signed a climate pledge tracked by Environmental Defence during the campaign. That commitment will meet its first tests in exactly those budget and infrastructure decisions.
Beyond the budget, every file that followed the old council out the door follows the new one in: roads, winter operations, the city’s long-term care and housing responsibilities, and the standing argument about how a city of Thunder Bay’s size pays for all of it. Thunder Bay City Council meets on Tuesday evenings at City Hall, 500 Donald Street East. The new council’s first decisions will be watched for what they signal—committee assignments, the handling of the 2027 budget, and the tone the mayor sets for working with the six returnees and five newcomers alike.
A council with this many new faces can spend its first months learning, or it can spend them deciding. The difference usually shows in the first budget. The mayoral result that looked close on election night stayed close in the official count. Unofficial results on October 26 and the days following had Comuzzi at 8,888 votes and Ruberto at 7,942. The Clerk’s Statement of Official Results, released October 30, confirmed the same figures. The unofficial tally and the official one matched.
This story covers the part that comes next: the taking of office, which is the moment the campaign’s promises become a government’s workload. What to watch in the coming days is the swearing-in and the first meeting cycle of the new term. Who is named to which committees and boards. How the 2027 budget lands in front of a council that did not design its starting point. How Comuzzi builds a working relationship with a chamber where half the members have done the job before and half have not. On November 15, the 2026–2030 council takes office, and the four-year term that voters chose on October 26 begins in earnest.
About the Author
Discover more from RL News
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
