Lower the tax squeeze

What has actually happened

Over the last four budgets, the total Burlington property tax bill rose 26.62% on a compounded basis. Inflation over those same four years was 15.56%.

But the total bill blends City, Halton Region and education portions. The number that matters is the one Council actually controls — and the City's own portion of your bill rose 42.56% in four years. Nearly three times inflation.

That's not a number I'm alleging. It's published by the City, in its own Historical Tax Increase Breakdown.

Why it keeps happening

Two structural reasons, and neither is a mystery.

We carry a real infrastructure gap

The City's 2026 budget says it needs $1.22 billion over ten years to maintain $7.1 billion in assets, and is budgeting $868 million. That $350 million shortfall is funded by a 2% dedicated levy — 2.14 percentage points of this year's 5.81% increase.

This part is legitimate. Deferring maintenance is not saving money; it's borrowing from your children, with interest.

And we stack enhancements onto the base

This is the part I want to examine. Service enhancements added 14.12% over four years, compounded, on top of the base budget. Each one is defensible on its own. Together they compound — and once something is in the base budget it's there forever, and it gets inflated every year after.

What I will push for

• A line-item audit of city contracts and procurement I review contracts for a living. I want to know what we're paying, to whom, on what terms, and whether those terms were ever renegotiated.
• A cap on discretionary base-budget additions Not a freeze on services — a rule that new recurring costs must be offset or explicitly voted as a tax increase, so residents can see the trade-off being made.
• A serious push to grow the commercial and industrial tax base Every commercial assessment we add is load taken off homeowners. This is slow work and it's the only durable fix.
• An open look at utility modernisation Including the stormwater user-fee model Oakville adopted in 2026. Straight with you: a stormwater fee doesn't make anything cheaper — it moves a cost off the tax bill onto a separate fee. What it offers is transparency, and it can be structured so large paved properties pay according to what they actually contribute in runoff. The City has committed to a feasibility study. I want that study public and debated in the open.

What I will not tell you

I will not promise you a tax freeze. Any candidate promising one is either planning to defer maintenance you'll pay for later with interest, or hasn't looked at the asset management plan.

What I will promise is that you'll always know what you're paying for, and why, in plain language, within 48 hours of the vote.

Sources: City of Burlington Historical Tax Increase Breakdown; 2026 Approved Budget Book, pp. 15, 22, 24, 25; Town of Oakville news releases, 1 and 16 December 2025.