By Sam Hersh
Each year Ottawa’s city council and Mayor are faced with what should not be a difficult decision: what to fund and how to fund it. Of course, this is not to say budgets are not complex processes with competing priorities. However, as Ottawa residents we should be able to feel confident that our essential services are not on the brink of collapse.
Like previous years, 2025’s budget’s most important priority is ensuring that property owners do not see an increase in their taxes. The 2025 budget, generally, sets the tax increase at 2.9%. According to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, this is significantly lower than other municipalities who have been raising them as they also grapple with a funding crunch.
Another fact to keep in mind is how limited municipalities are in their revenue-raising capabilities. Almost half of every city’s revenue comes from property taxes, another chunk comes from other funding streams like development charges. The rest of that comes from provincial and federal transfers, meaning cities are often forced to rely on the goodwill of (sometimes very bad) premiers like they did during the pandemic with much-needed funding from the Safe Restart program.
On that note, current Mayor Sutcliffe has gone to great lengths to try and highlight this as the main problem. In an August news conference, he blamed the federal government for not paying their taxes and has tried to force the province’s hand in forking over money for transit and other necessities. The mayor’s blame game has not bore him and our council any fruit.
Sutcliffe is not inherently wrong in asking the province for transit money for example. Before Progressive Conservative Premier Mike Harris came into power, the province had a deal where they funded 50% of municipal transit operating funds. At a certain point, our council needs to face the reality that Sutcliffe’s tactics are not working and our city must accept its own responsibility for the mess we are in.
Decades of policy failures and austerity have brought us to where we are. Despite running on a platform of supposedly fixing transit and fiscal responsibility, Sutcliffe has continued this trend of pushing austerity measures perhaps with even more gusto than his predecessors.
The budget is out-of-touch with reality and displays a callous disregard to the multitude of crises that we face
The biggest issue this budget cycle has been without a doubt public transit. Transit represents a big portion of the budget in Ottawa, about $850 million, or close to a quarter of the entire operating budget. Since his first year as Mayor, Sutcliffe has presented this budget with a gaping hole that was supposed to be filled by provincial and/or federal funding. The money has still never come and that hole is expected to grow to $120 million.
So what is the Mayor’s solution? Is it to make the service better so more people take it? Or perhaps to re-allocate funding from other less important things like the over $500 million Lansdowne project to fill the hole? Or maybe to finally raise property taxes to pay for it?
No, those would be too sensible. Instead, the Mayor has opted to raise fares significantly, moving us towards having some of the most expensive fares in North America. Most notably, his transit working group consisting of several councillors proposed many changes. These consist of raising the monthly seniors’ pass by 120%, eliminating free passes for 11 and 12 year olds and raising fares by 5% for all riders. This brings Ottawa’s fares past the $4.00 mark.
It is important to note that none of these proposals, even combined, don’t add up to even close to the $120 million needed to fill the hole.
Another tactic is to clamp down on fare evasion. However, even the city’s own projections say that they will bring in only $1 million in fines, which would barely pay the almost $4 million needed to fund fare inspectors themselves.
The budget also fails in a multitude of other regards. For example, continuing to raise the police budget and rewarding them for continuing to clamp down on legitimate dissent and multiple scandals involving their own officers including the former deputy chief of police. In our city, there are over 100 anti-poverty organizations that have to fight over a $30 million pot of money all while police get a more than $400 million budget with a proposed increase of $16.3 million.
The spending on affordable housing was also decreased from the historic $30 million amount last year to $22 million. Even though the city council declared a housing and homelessness emergency in 2020.
The budget is out-of-touch with reality and displays a callous disregard to the multitude of crises that we face, from climate to housing to drug overdoses and beyond and Mark Sutcliffe is clearly not equipped in dealing with them.
Another significant issue is the complete lack of consultation that is done in the lead up to the release of the final document. Since it was published in November, the announcement of the budget leaves residents with less than a month to add their comments and often little is changed from the original proposals.
As a community we know we can do better – a budget that truly reflects the needs of our city is one that is developed in collaboration with community partners and residents.

That is why over 15 groups came together as the Ottawa Coalition for a People’s Budget earlier this Fall to create another edition of an alternative budget for Ottawa. The Coalition’s Alternative Budget document shows what our local government could accomplish if they were guided by a true commitment to values of social equity, human dignity, fairness and environmental sustainability instead of the interests of the privileged few
The key proposals in the document are a stark contrast to what the city is currently prioritizing its funding towards and has six key priorities:
- Introducing new revenue raising tools like a parking levy or raising the vacant unit tax to deal with the lack of funding from different levels of government.
- Making affordable housing a key priority and fighting back against the financialization of housing by pushing for policies that prioritize tenants and encourage building not-for-profit housing and social housing.
- Investing in transit as a vital community service by moving towards bold policy proposals like fare-free transit for all and expanding the network of bus lanes to significantly reduce congestion on our roads.
- Investing in community services and prioritizing real community safety by re-allocating significant resources away from police, investing in harm reduction and really fighting back against food insecurity.
- Investing in climate action and getting the city to actually honour its billions of dollars of commitments in climate initiatives among other things.
- Investing in safe cycling infrastructure by putting money into safe and secure bike parking across the city and implementing a comprehensive and safe cycling network.
All of these priorities reflect points that are lacking in the actual budget. They speak to a severe lack of investments in things that matter not only to the 15 community groups, but to residents as a whole.
The framework the Coalition set out is not as comprehensive as the entire city budget but is a first step that shows what is possible and emphasizes the fact that residents do not need to settle for a status quo budget. In fact, we can no longer afford to.
Editor’s Note: Sam Hersh is the coordinator at Horizon Ottawa, a coalition member of the Ottawa Coalition for a People’s Budget, which drafted the Alternative Municipal Budget.