By Ray Rivers
February 22, 2026
BURLINGTON, ON
I have to disagree with my publisher on just how decent the City of Hamilton is at handling our tax dollars. In his recent editorial, he complimented the City’s mayor, Andrea Horwath, with bringing in a decent budget by “whittling down the proposed tax hike to 3.85%”.
A Hamilton style pot-hole
Excuse me, but 3.8% is almost twice the general inflation rate which hovers around 2%. And Hamilton, though no longer the highest taxed of Ontario municipalities is still up there with the worst. And what do we tax payers get for all those taxes we pay Well, yes there are those overpriced tiny houses (see link below). And anyone who has driven in the City can tell you why Hamilton has become famous for the worst-maintained roads in the province.
It’s true that a 3.85% increase is considerably better than the rate increase facing Burlington residents, but calling Horwath’s budget decent should be faint praise, at best. Kudos for the small budgetary cuts like ending free lunches for council and senior staff – literally feeding at the public trough. And the City did eventually kill the proposed expensive and dysfunctional stoplight they tried to push onto the peaceful Carlisle residents.
Rural Hamilton
Of course, the budget numbers are helped by the City gouging rural residents to help pay for the urban residential storm-water management. I’ve lived in rural Hamilton for over twenty years and since amalgamation it has only become more expensive. Now Windsor or Vaughan have brought in budgets with zero tax increases. That is what I’d call a decent budget.
Ray Rivers, a Gazette Contributing Editor, writes regularly applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was once a candidate for provincial office in Burlington. He was the founder of the Burlington citizen committee on sustainability at a time when climate warming was a hotly debated subject. Ray has a post graduate degree in economics that he earned at the University of Ottawa. Tweet @rayzrivers
Background links:
Editorial – Tiny Homes – Worst Roads – Carlisle Stop Light – Just Getting More Expensive – Vaughan Zero Tax Increase –
Discover more from Burlington Gazette - Local News, Politics, Community
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Ray is spot on.
We left the gong show that is Hamilton 18 years ago. I penned a published letter to the Hamilton Spectator that it was largely due to municipal taxes. The comedy act continues. Burlington is following Hamilton example. There is no longer accountability in government.
I sincerely hope Fred does not run for office. All levels of government need serious cutbacks, starting with staff if this country is to economically survive. Socialism has not been kind to the Cuba’s and Venezuela’s and there is no road back.
Your overtaxed citizens get over paid civil servants.
Credit to Windsor and Vaughan, Hopefully they did this by reducing operational costs and not pulling money from Reserves as Toronto is doing or hiding increases in fees like Cambridge did last year. Municipalities have had little scrutiny for many years and the high inflation after the pandemic has exposed their lack of management. The province should mandate that all Municipalities have a Value for Money methodology imbeeded into their management processes and Councils need to push their senior staff on this.
(Reference – https://www.cipfa.org/policy-and-guidance/reports/a-guide-to-support-value-for-money-vfm-analysis-for-public-managers )
On the efficiency component of VFM councils should be setting Operating Cost Budgets at 0% for 5 years and when their CAO’s and CFO’s complain advise them the door is open for them to leave if they cannot manage – it is easy to run an organization without financial pressure when you are constantly getting inflation or more in terms of increases. Time for a change in municipal management.
Years ago the province downloaded welfare onto the municipalites. Hamilton being of lower rent that the cities to the east has a much larger population with needs. Heck some were even bussed here. We paid for your poor. It put is a whole we still are digging out. One other city’s did not have. Sure they took works back in 2010 but according to google:
Hamilton currently covers roughly 70% of homelessness support costs ($119 million), leaving the remaining 30% to provincial and federal partners.
Our roads require more cost to restore. Mill rate is higher because property values are lower. Wow.
Zero percent tax hikes are a fools game usually put forward by conservatives trying to pretend they are good money managers or that they respect the tax payer, but in reality it is smoke and mirrors. Increasing costs are a fact of life and cities are not exempt from this reality. The cost of wages for city staff who provide services go up ever year. The cost to maintain existing infrastructure goes up as parts and supplies go up. The usual way conservatives have a zero increase in property taxes is a combination of eliminating services and delaying or eliminating maintenance in infrastructure. The later is a dangerous game as by not maintaining roads, sewers, parks leaves a capital deficit and eventually those things have to be replaced before ther end of natural life, which means huge costs later. In fact, future increases costs us more then if you had properly maintained the asset in the first place. So complain about an increase above inflation all you want, but please don’t advocate for a zero increase because that is just a lie as that bill will eventually come due.