This fall, voters across Canada will choose new municipal councils. British Columbia's local elections are set for October 17, 2026, Ontario's for October 26, 2026 and Manitoba's for October 28, 2026. New mayors, councillors and trustees will soon arrive with their own priorities.
For senior staff, the question that follows is very practical: what happens to the strategic plan we have been executing? In most cases, you do not throw it away. You realign it.
A new term of council is a checkpoint, not a reset
Municipalities do not control every variable. Many of their projects depend on provincial and federal programs, transfers, funding agreements and reporting requirements set elsewhere. A new council may also want to put its own stamp on the organization's direction.
That is healthy. What is not healthy is discovering, six months into the term, that half of the action plans no longer match what council expects, just as the first progress report is due.
A plan built to outlast a term of council
A strategic plan's horizon varies with the type of organization. Many businesses and nonprofits plan over three or five years, because their environment moves quickly and a very long view is hard to hold. Municipalities and the organizations that run public infrastructure, on the other hand, need a long-term vision, often spanning a decade. Whatever the horizon, the logic is the same: a vision that stays stable from one term to the next, and projects and action plans that are revised year to year.
For this to work, the plan needs clear levels. Depending on the size and maturity of the organization, you will usually find two, three or four strategic levels, followed by an operational level:
- Vision and strategic priorities: they set the direction for the whole horizon and rarely change.
- Pillars or themes: they group priorities into broad areas (for example, complete communities, economic development, organizational excellence).
- Objectives: measurable and tied to performance indicators, they can be adjusted when the context changes significantly.
- Targets: they specify the expected result and the deadline, and can be revised when needed.
- Action plans (operational level): annual or multi-year, they bring together projects and concrete actions, each with an owner, a timeline and a budget. These are the first things you revisit.
A small organization can work very well with two strategic levels (priorities and objectives). A city or a large public body will often have three or four. The number of levels matters less than the clarity of the links between them: every action should roll up to an objective, and every objective to a priority.
The clearer this hierarchy, the easier the realignment. When a new council arrives, you keep the vision, check the objectives and adjust the action plans. You know exactly what you are changing and what you are keeping.
5 steps to realign without starting over
1. Map your external dependencies
Before election day, identify the actions in your plan that depend on another order of government, a grant or a partnership agreement. A simple "external dependency" tag on each one is enough. When new commitments are announced, you will know exactly which lines to watch.
2. Read the new council's priorities through your plan
Once council has been sworn in and sets out its priorities, map them against your strategic priorities. Three cases: the new priority reinforces an existing one (opportunity), constrains it (risk) or is neutral. This takes an hour with the senior leadership team and produces a clear view to bring to council orientation.
3. Hold an alignment review within 90 days
Schedule a dedicated strategic plan review within the first three months of the term. The goal is not to rewrite the plan, but to answer three questions for every affected action: keep, adjust or defer?
4. Document every adjustment
An undocumented change becomes an awkward question at reporting time. For each decision, record the date, the reason and the accountable owner. When a councillor or a resident asks why an action slipped, the answer is already written.
5. Share the updated plan
Council, staff and residents deserve the same up-to-date version. A short progress report that shows what changed and why builds far more trust than a plan presented as set in stone.
The trap to avoid: the frozen plan
The biggest risk after an election is not a change of direction. It is inertia. The plan lives in a shared spreadsheet, updates happen once a year, and nobody really knows which actions are affected. The plan drifts away from reality and teams stop referring to it.
The antidote is a strategic governance cadence: fixed moments to review progress, performance indicators and risks, and to make documented decisions. A new term of council then becomes one checkpoint among others, not a crisis.
This is also where a strategic plan tracking tool proves its worth. In Planivore, for example, priorities, objectives and actions are linked, every action has an accountable owner, and progress notes stay attached to the right item. When it is time to report to council, the history of adjustments is already there.
Take the first step this week
The new council is coming. Your long-term vision can stay the same as long as your action plans keep pace. Start with step 1 this week: identify your external dependencies. The rest will follow.
Call to action
To go further, download Volume 2 of our guides, The Strategic Governance Cadence.
Prefer to talk it through? Book a 30-minute demo.
