Brian Bigger

Canadian politician

Brian Bigger
Bigger in 2014

Mayor of Greater Sudbury
In office December 1, 2014 – November 15, 2022
Preceded by	Marianne Matichuk
Succeeded by	Paul Lefebvre

Personal details
Born	1958 (age 65–66) Sudbury, Ontario, Canada
Occupation	Accountant, auditor

Brian Bigger is a Canadian politician who served as the mayor of Greater Sudbury from 2014 to 2022. He was elected in the city's 2014 municipal election.^[1] Prior to serving as mayor, Bigger served as the first Auditor General for the city.

Background

Born and raised in Sudbury, Bigger attended high school at St. Charles College,^[2] and studied marketing at Cambrian College and commerce at Laurentian University.^[2] He is a Chartered Professional Accountant,^[2] and worked as an accountant and auditor for Sears Canada and the Regional Municipality of Halton^[3] until he was appointed to a three-year term as the city of Greater Sudbury's auditor general in 2009.^[4]

As auditor general, he identified significant waste in the city's management of road maintenance, including scheduling inefficiencies and overbilling by outside contractors,^[4] as well as uncovering an illegal practice of paid shift trading taking place among employees of Greater Sudbury Transit.^[4]

In 2011, Greater Sudbury City Council held an in camera meeting about whether to renew Bigger's contract for a second three-year term;^[5] during the meetings, they took the unusual step of deciding to hire an outside auditor to audit Bigger's office.^[6] Bigger's contract was renewed, but several citizens of the city filed a complaint with the Ontario Ombudsman about the closed-door meetings.^[6] Ombudsman André Marin investigated the matter, ultimately finding that council was within its right to hold a closed meeting as it was a personnel matter involving a city employee, but criticized many of the councillors in his final report for refusing to cooperate with his investigation.^[6] As a result of Marin's report, city council voted to reject any oversight from the ombudsman's office.^[6]

Politics

Bigger stated that by summer 2014, he was beginning to consider running for mayor to combat the obstruction he had faced in his role as auditor.^[2] In August, he requested a leave of absence from his job as auditor to launch a campaign for mayor.^[3] The request was granted.^[3] However, council then faced a further controversy when, rather than hiring or contracting a temporary auditor general to continue audit operations during Bigger's leave of absence, it simply suspended the office and reassigned Bigger's assistant, senior auditor Vasu Balakrishnan, to the finance department.^[7]

Bigger's campaign for mayor was based on a platform of openness, transparency and accountability.^[8] His campaign promises included identifying budget savings in order to deliver a zero property tax increase in his first year as mayor,^[8] reinstating the provincial ombudsman as the investigator of complaints about council activities,^[8] and implementing new ethics guidelines for city councillors and staff modelled on the Vaughan Accord implemented by Vaughan mayor Maurizio Bevilacqua in 2011.^[9]

On election day, Bigger garnered 46 per cent of the vote.^[8]

He was reelected to a second term in the 2018 municipal election, the first mayor to be re-elected to a second term in office since the municipal amalgamation of 2001.^[10]

In October 2022, he withdrew from the 2022 Greater Sudbury municipal election several weeks after having registered as a candidate, citing the need to spend more time with his family due to the declining health of his mother.^[11]

References

^ "Brian Bigger elected mayor of Greater Sudbury". CBC Sudbury, October 27, 2014.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d "Mayoral profile: Bigger believes in value for money ". Sudbury Star, October 24, 2014.
^ ^a ^b ^c "Bigger granted leave to run for mayor of Sudbury". Sudbury Star, August 1, 2014.
^ ^a ^b ^c "Auditors serve up savings". Windsor Star, March 4, 2011.
^ "Councillors could have faced charges for not co-operating: Ombudsman". Northern Life, August 30, 2012.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d "City Issues: What Sudbury's Mayoral Race Means to the Rest of Ontario" Archived 2014-12-22 at the Wayback Machine. The Agenda, October 17, 2014.
^ "Ombudsman jabs Sudbury council over auditor general's office". Northern Life, August 13, 2014.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d "Bigger elected mayor in Greater Sudbury". Sudbury Star, October 27, 2014.
^ "A Bigger Plan for City Hall" Archived December 24, 2014, at the Wayback Machine. Northern Life, September 26, 2014.
^ "Sudbury voters return Bigger for second term as mayor". Sudbury Star, October 23, 2018.
^ Mary Katherine Keown, "Brian Bigger drops out of Greater Sudbury's mayoral race". Sudbury Star, October 4, 2022.