Neil Ellis was elected Mayor of the City of Belleville in the 2022 municipal election.
- Municipality: Belleville
Bio
Husband to Susan for over 35 years, and the proud father of Zachary, Maddison and Abigail.
His father was a World War II veteran.
Career and business interests
In 1983 he started a distribution business. In 1984 he became the proprietor of Doug’s Bicycle, a bicycle store in Belleville which his brother had operated for five years. He owned and operated Doug’s Bicycle for 28 years before selling it to Jim Forbes and business partner, incumbent councillor Tyler Allsop in 2012.
- 2003 – Decides to get involved in politics. Runs municipally for a first time, but lost to Mary Ann Sills in one of Belleville’s closest mayoral race. Ellis then came short to earn city hall’s top seat by about 220 votes.
- 2006 – Defeats Mary Ann Sills in his second mayoral race and is elected Mayor of Belleville.
- 2010 – Ellis is re-elected for a second term as Mayor of Belleville after he defeated Mitch Panciuk in the October election.
- 2012 – Ellis sells Doug’s Bike shop to Tyler Allsopp and Jim Forbes
- January 2014 – Ellis is giving up a third mayorship bid to make his second attempt into federal politics. He announces he will seek the Federal Liberal nomination in the new Bay of Quinte riding.
- May 2014 – Members of the Bay of Quinte Federal Liberal Association have spoken and they want Ellis as their candidate for the 2015 election. A total of 178 votes were cast at the Greek Hall on Sunday, May 25 with Ellis earning the most against Peter Tinsley.
- October 2015 – Elected Member of Parliament for Bay of Quinte
- October 2019 – Re-elected Member of Parliament for Bay of Quinte
- April 2019, he made a motion that the government should set a goal to prevent and end veteran homelessness in Canada by 2025.
Mayor of Belleville 2006-2014
As mayor, Ellis guided city council through the Build Belleville initiative, which involved pursuing 22 infrastructure projects worth $91 million. During his time as mayor, there was the development of a new sports complex, the Veterans’ Memorial Bridge, clean-up and development of Meyer’s Pier and starting the Physician Recruitment Program – recruiting 15 doctors in the first year after his 2006 election and a total of about 20 in that term.
In 2012 he wrote a letter to the Premier of Ontario Dalton McGuinty urging the province’s Liberal government to reconsider its plan to drop the slots-at-racetracks program.
On the switch to federal politics: “federal leadership is key to securing the stable funding needed for municipal infrastructure development and service delivery.”
On returning to municipal government: “decisions made by municipal government most directly affect the daily lives of citizens”.
Latest updates
Mayor Ellis says emergency action plan needed on homelessness
From 2006 to ’14 we basically had some couch-surfing, but really no visible homelessness. I went away for basically two terms — eight years — came back, and we have approximately 200 homeless
So it’s grown and grown and growing, and there doesn’t seem to be an end to it.
It’s basically a health crisis. It’s a social economic crisis. And I don’t see that successive governments at the provincial level … are tackling any type of thing that we can see — whether it’s poor policy decisions, or they’re just not interested in it
When I look at it, why aren’t they interested? Basically the cost, but the homeless don’t vote, and I hate to say it. But it’s a social crisis right now and we need to get out in front of it.
Mayor Neil Ellis to CBC Radio’s Ontario Morning
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Council Code of Conduct violations
The Integrity Commissioner is appointed to address the application of the Code of Conduct for elected officials and/or members of local boards and whose powers and duties are Section 223.3 of the Municipal Act.
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