Category: 2013-2017 Term

How to build, and properly finance, more affordable housing

It’s been almost three weeks since the City passed its 3-year operating budget and now that the dust has settled, some people have asked: if affordable housing is such a priority for City Council, why did we leave affordable housing projects unfunded? While the main thrust of these budget deliberations was restraint on spending, a related… Read More

Discipline and restraint: budget 2016-18 wrap

After five days of discussion over sixty-plus amendments, this year’s City Council budget debate could be characterized as a difficult, yet productive journey. When we began these discussions last Friday, there were $58 million in unfunded initiatives and a 4.9% proposed property tax increase before Council. At the same time, we’d heard loud and clear… Read More

A new approach to police budgets

We are now deep into budget discussions for the City’s 2016-2018 Operating Budget and there are still difficult decisions ahead over which initiatives to fund and which ones we can reduce to get closer to a reasonable tax increase. This year – as in the past – police funding draws a significant amount of attention. On… Read More

Vote for cities in this election

If you’ve been following the volley of ads leading up to next week’s federal election, the topic of our economy has been front and centre. When Canada’s Big City Mayors get together, it’s the topic of our conversation too – mainly because strong cities are the backbone of a strong economy. Here’s why: imagine a… Read More