{"id":16364,"date":"2025-12-09T19:43:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T22:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2025\/12\/09\/councillors-spar-over-spending-as-city-budget-heads-to-final-vote\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T19:43:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T22:43:11","slug":"councillors-spar-over-spending-as-city-budget-heads-to-final-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2025\/12\/09\/councillors-spar-over-spending-as-city-budget-heads-to-final-vote\/","title":{"rendered":"Councillors spar over spending as city budget heads to final vote"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>OttawaCity councillors are divided over funding for police, transit and infrastructure as they prepare to vote on Ottawa\u2019s last budget before next year\u2019s municipal election.\u2019I think this myth of Team Ottawa is starting to fall apart,\u2019 says councillor as budget reveals divisionsListen to this articleEstimated 6 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.Ottawa city councillors will gather around this table Wednesday to pass the 2026 budget, but the document has revealed \u2018fundamental differences\u2019 among them, one councillor says. (City of Ottawa)City councillors are divided over funding for police, transit and infrastructure as they prepare to vote on Ottawa\u2019s last budget before next year\u2019s municipal election.The spending plan comes up for final approval on Wednesday. It commits more than $5.2 billion to city operations and more than $1.9 billion to capital projects.It would hike taxes that fund police by five per cent and transit by eight per cent, while the rate that funds most other city services would rise by only two per cent.That adds up to a 3.75 per cent property tax increase overall, or about $166 annually for the average urban homeowner.The mayor has framed the budget as a balancing act between affordability and investment in key priorities like public safety. But some councillors including Kitchissippi Coun. Jeff Leiper are already planning to vote no.\u201dI think this is a status quo budget that fails to address head-on some of the challenges that we have with respect to austerity funding for the day-to-day services and ensuring that our infrastructure is being maintained,\u201d Leiper said.He said the efficiencies the mayor has touted in the budget stem in part from \u201clucky breaks\u201d like savings on the scuttled carbon tax.Even so, Leiper has little doubt that the majority on council will vote the other way.\u201dI don\u2019t think there\u2019s any question the budget will pass virtually as drafted tomorrow,\u201d he said Tuesday.Police spending reveals stark divisionsThe boost to the police budget will increase the city\u2019s ongoing contribution to the Ottawa Police Service by $26.1 million, plus $5.4 million in one-time funding from reserves. It will help hire 21 more officers.\u201dThis budget is there to address what has been a very long-standing issue of under-resourcing our police units,\u201d said Beacon Hill-Cyrville Coun. Tim Tierney.But that spending has proven controversial, with councillors exchanging barbs on social media and in newspaper opinion sections.Tierney has criticized council colleagues who \u201cchronically oppose police budgets,\u201d saying they tend to represent areas that have recently seen spikes in violent crime. He singled out Leiper\u2019s Kitchissippi ward and Coun. Ariel Troster\u2019s Somerset ward, both of which have seen double-digit increases in crime, according to the latest police data.\u201dThis will be the election issue,\u201d Tierney told CBC. \u201cWe need police on the street to be able to deal with a lot of the violent crime issues.\u201dLeiper said he plans to support the police budget to address \u201csignificant financial pressures on the police service,\u201d while voting against the city budget as a whole.  It seems that there is no ceiling for police funding, but everyone else has to tighten their belt.- Coun. Ariel TrosterTroster said she will vote against both.She called it \u201cbeyond the pale\u201d for Tierney to go after urban councillors for representing their residents. She said the 2022 convoy protest frayed trust in police among residents of her ward.\u201dHe suggested that councillors who somehow vote no or disagree with a particular budget are somehow causing crime in communities, which is really absurd,\u201d Troster said in an interview.\u201dCrime is always higher in urban communities. We are the epicentre of the addiction, homelessness and mental health crisis.\u201dShe faulted the budget for increasing police spending by far more than funding for programs that directly target those social issues.\u201dWhy would we constantly write a blank cheque?\u201d she asked. \u201cIt seems that there is no ceiling for police funding, but everyone else has to tighten their belt.\u201dOrl\u00e9ans councillors getting \u2018crumbs\u2019Some councillors are planning to reject specific chunks of the budget while lending their support to others. River ward Coun. Riley Brockington told CBC he will vote no on the OC Transpo budget. He said he can\u2019t support a budget with a \u201c$46-million dream of a bailout,\u201d referring to a placeholder in the transit budget that assumes the province will come to the rescue and upload the LRT.Alta Vista Coun. Marty Carr, who dissented on part of the transit budget at committee, said she might be prepared to support it on Wednesday \u201cif some concessions are made.\u201dThat might be in the offing. Transit committee chair Glen Gower told CBC he\u2019s working with the mayor and other councillors to \u201ctie up loose ends\u201d on fares and an improvement to LRT Line 1 service frequencies.Two Orl\u00e9ans councillors have targeted their ire at the public works and infrastructure budget, repeating their perennial complaint that the city is shortchanging the east end.During a committee meeting last month, Orl\u00e9ans South-Navan Coun. Catherine Kitts said budget season has often left her frustrated.\u201cNow I\u2019m verging on angry,\u201d she said. \u201cWe cannot build a community with crumbs, and every year there seems to be a new set of excuses for why funding isn\u2019t reaching the east end.\u201dShe said she won\u2019t be supporting any transportation budget until it commits funding to advance projects in her area. \u201cWe have a list of long-planned projects that never seem to move forward, and every year the gap gets bigger,\u201d Orl\u00e9ans East-Cumberland Coun. Matt Luloff added.\u2019There are fundamental differences\u2019Gower said councillors may dissent here and there, but he doesn\u2019t think it will be enough to sink the budget as a whole.\u201dThis has been a very collaborative budget process,\u201d he said. \u201cI think there\u2019s some specific departmental budgets where some councillors have concerns and may vote no. On the overall budget, I think we\u2019ll be in good shape.\u201dBut Troster said the budget process \u2014 and the debate it has provoked \u2014 has been anything but collegial.\u201dI think this myth of Team Ottawa is starting to fall apart,\u201d she said. \u201cThere are fundamental differences.\u201dABOUT THE AUTHORArthur White-Crummey is a reporter at CBC Ottawa. He has previously worked as a reporter in Saskatchewan covering the courts, city hall and the provincial legislature. You can reach him at arthur.white-crummey@cbc.ca.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>OttawaCity councillors are divided over funding for police, transit and infrastructure as they prepare to vote on Ottawa\u2019s last budget before next year\u2019s municipal election.\u2019I think this myth of Team Ottawa is starting to fall apart,\u2019 says councillor as budget reveals divisionsListen to this articleEstimated 6 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16365,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,1047,1],"tags":[116,1046],"class_list":["post-16364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-indigenous","category-ontario","category-uncategorized","tag-indigenous","tag-ontario"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}