By Pepper Parr
January 25th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
Mayor Marianne Meed Ward spoke to the business elite at the Burlington Convention Centre on Friday, pulled together by the Chamber of Commerce.
It was described as a SOLD-OUT event – there was space for a few more tables – but it was certainly a full house.
There was a bit of room for a few additional tables.
Mayor Meed Ward being interviewed after her address to the Chamber of Commerce audience.
The Mayor didn’t have all that much to say; she covered the bases and told the crowd that the transit system recorded “We had a staggering 3.2 million trips on our buses and a 14 percent increase in ridership since 2023.
No one in this crowd will be taking a bus any time soon.
The full speech is being transcribed and will be published soon.
The Mayor gave the audience the city hall description of the tax increase. That graphic didn’t square with what the Gazette has reported.
Our numbers, set out below, show a different picture.
Well at least she doesn’t seem to be putting professional business clothes expenses in the budget.
It would be interesting to have the mayor ask at these events, How many of you took the bus to get here? When no one raises their hand perhaps a good follow up question would.be, and why not?
Anecdotally I see empty buses for most of the day in the east end and personally I have never shared the full sized bus with more than four people. How environmentally friendly is this?
Not sure where the staggering number of rides take place.
MMW has obviously drunk the Donald Trump Kool-Aid that if something is said often enough, it will magically be believed as the truth. What would be effective is if a taxpayer at one of her media events presented their tax bills to her that confirmed the percentage increase and pointedly asked how there could be a such a considerable difference between what she was saying and reality. I would love to hear her talk her way out of that scenario.
The 3.2 million trips is staggering. It means that the less than two seats are occupied at given time on average on a bus that cost over a million dollars to buy!
The expression on the Mayor’s face suggests something like “what’s going on here? These aren’t the questions that were sent to my office last week!”
She should have been taking about the Trump impact on local business!
We are already reading about companies making plans to not expand in Canada but relocating in the USA.
Editors note: Could you be specific – we have no idea what you are reading.
If our Mayor and Council continually report different property tax numbers that are spelled out on our issued and printed Burlington Property Tax bills, there must be a communication problem going on at city hall.
The proof is on our tax bills!!