Council Approves the 2025 Budget
Yesterday, City Council approved the 2025 Budget with a 22-3 vote. Though I had reservations about the proposed tax increases, I ultimately voted for the budget as I believe it was the best deal available for our communities.
When considering the 2025 Budget, I had a few core questions that needed to be answered.
What investments are being made in our communities?
What are residents being asked to pay?
What is the City doing to live within its means?
As I noted in past updates, I was unsure about where I was going to fall on the budget. The answers to these questions informed my decision on the budget.
What investments are being made in our communities?
In reviewing the budget, it appears that our communities will have about $20 million allocated in capital investments to ward-specific priorities. I discussed these investments in my previous updates on the budget, which you can read more about here:
Of particular note, I believe that money is being spent in places that matter: supporting more policing in our communities; significant and growing funding into roads, sidewalks, and other transportation infrastructure; doubling the investment into ditching; investments to support delivering on the outcomes from the rural summit; significant investments into road safety and traffic management, including a truck route review and two new traffic cameras in our ward.
Put simply, our communities will be safer, our roads will be smoother, and necessary capital investments will roll out sooner because of this budget. I believe that the Mayor, through the budget, has focused on the right priorities, including many of the priorities that I identified during rounds of budget consultation.
There are some things that are missing from the budget. For instance, I believe that more investment needs to be rolled out to fund traffic lights and other traffic control measures in places where they are needed. I believe that a new approach is needed for rural Ottawa in particular.
City staff will be developing a better plan for funding this infrastructure in the 2026 Budget. Moreover, staff confirmed at the Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee meeting on December 5th that future budget years will see rural Councillors having the ability to exercise more oversight over these kinds of investments when they are made in rural Ottawa.
Though our communities are not receiving all the investments that I think should be in the budget, we are still receiving significant investments in many areas that matter. On balance, I believe that the spending plan for this budget is a net positive for our community.
What are residents being asked to pay?
As noted before, the budget proposes a 2.9% property tax increase and a significant increase to the transit levy. Taken together, the overall tax increase proposed in the budget works out to be 3.9% for most residents in the City.
Rural residents will see a lower tax increase as the relative transit levy increase in rural Ottawa will be lower. Residents who are in Rural Transit Area - A will see a total of a 3.2% increase in taxes and residents in Rural Transit Area - B will see a 3% tax increase.
Based on average assessed property values, most residents in rural Ottawa will be paying roughly $100 to $115 more than what they paid in the 2024 tax year.
On the face of it, this tax increase is not fully justified. I believe that there is more that the City can and should be doing to reduce pressure on taxpayers. Before asking for more money from residents, the City must do everything that it can to make sure that every single dollar that is collected is being spent wisely.
We need a City that can demonstrate that it is living within its means. Speaking of…
What is the City doing to live within its means?
Throughout this term of Council, the City has worked hard on finding savings and efficiencies. $208 million in combined savings – an amount roughly equivalent to a 10% property tax increase – has been found across the 2023, 2024, and approved 2025 budgets. In 2025 alone, $54.2 million has been found in efficiencies. I am pleased to have engaged with the Mayor and senior City management in helping identify these savings.
In real dollar terms, the $208 million that has been found saves the average household over $400 that would otherwise have been realized through property tax increases.
Putting this into context, Ottawa has increased its taxes at a rate that is lower than inflation. Moreover, my office dug into the numbers: in the last couple of years, Ottawa is among the best performers among all of Canada’s large municipalities and even compared to small regional municipalities.
In the 2024 and 2025 budget years, the average total tax increase among large municipalities has been 11.11%. For small municipalities in the region, the average is 9.81%.
Over the same period, Ottawa has raised taxes by 6.4% (2.5% in 2024 and 3.9% in 2025). Had Ottawa increased its taxes at the same rate as its peers, the average property owner would be paying $150-$200 more in property taxes.
While taxes are increasing and while that tax increase is concerning to me, it is nonetheless the case that the City has performed far better than many of its peers when it comes to living within its means and minimizing the impacts of the municipal government on residents.
Even so, I believe that more must be done.
One reason why I felt comfortable supporting the budget is that the Mayor has firmly committed to finding efficiencies and improving service delivery as an ongoing process so that the City can continue to live within its means. Building on the success that we have already seen in finding efficiencies, I am continuing to work with the Mayor and City staff on new ideas and cost-saving strategies that will help make sure that the 2026 budget continues to tighten the City’s belt.
I believe that every effort should be made to find savings and efficiencies before asking residents to pay more. Ottawa has done a good job in recent years of trying to find the balance between reducing waste while supporting important investments. There is more that can be done and I look forward to continuing the fight to make sure that every dollar that the City collects is spent responsibly on programs, services, and investments that make life better for our communities.
What should we do about transit?
It’s impossible to ignore the elephant in the room: transit. Transit funding has been a challenging issue for a number of reasons, though perhaps the biggest has been the funding shortfall that Ottawa has been managing.
The fact is that we lack the same kind of financial support that other levels of government provide to other municipalities. For instance, the provincial government and the federal government announced the next step in a $3.4 billion light rail project in Hamilton, a project entirely paid for by those two levels of government.
Ottawa does not receive this kind of support, which has contributed in part to the financial pressure that the City is under.
That said, the City certainly shares in the blame. Residents aren’t using transit because the system is not a fast and reliable means to get where they need to go. This in turn negatively impacts fares and increases traffic congestion. Fixing this system will require changes to how services are delivered and funded.
I am working with my Council colleagues to advance several creative solutions that I am excited to share in the new year. Among them, I am looking to see whether there could be a greater role for the private sector in delivering mass transit options for rural communities without further increasing residents’ levies. I am also advocating for a return of express routes to improve speed and reliability.
We need a different approach to transit funding – one which is funded by those who benefit most from the service. I believe this should be through adjustments to fares based on trip length and adjustments to levies based on proximity to major stations and access level to regular transit.
Many of these ideas are not within the scope of the 2025 budget but will have impacts on the 2026 budget. Stay tuned!
Conclusion
The 2025 Budget is an imperfect compromise that invests in a number of priorities for our communities. Though the tax increase is not one that I am particularly pleased with, it is nonetheless the case that Ottawa has done a much better job than the vast majority of our peers, both regionally and across similar cities nation-wide, at finding savings and efficiencies. While transit remains a challenge, it is a challenge that requires structural fixes that are outside the scope of this budget.
I believe it is important to stress how fortunate Ottawa is to have a Mayor who is committed to fiscal discipline. My understanding is that we will see more savings and efficiencies realized in 2025 to further reduce pressure on residents for the 2026 budget. This gives me confidence that the City will continue to improve its approach to respecting each and every tax dollar that is collected and will continue to deliver programs, services, and investments efficiently and responsibly.
Overall, I believe 2024 was a good year for rural Ottawa and Ward 21 specifically. We are closing out a year that saw more than $30 million invested into our roads, with even more road investments coming in 2025. The Rural Summit delivered solutions for many longstanding issues faced by rural residents. 2025 will see many of these fixes being implemented to due in large part to the Rural Summit and the direct engagement of more than 500 rural residents.
I remain committed to advocating for responsible spending and meaningful investment that enhance the quality of life for all residents to ultimately build a stronger, more efficient Ottawa. As always, please reach out to my office if you need assistance with a municipal issue or would like more information as to how Budget 2025 will benefit your community.