Hamilton mayoral candidates speak on city’s affordability, property taxes

With 350 jobs lost at Stelco Steel Manufacturing and 413 at Hamilton Health Sciences in just one week, affordability has taken on a new meaning for candidates vying for the city’s top job.

This week, CHCH News sat down with the top three candidates running to be the next mayor of Hamilton, to ask their thoughts on some of the leading issues on the minds of voters.

Here is what they said about how they plan to keep property tax increases affordable.

One thing that all of the top-three leading mayoral candidates can agree on is that property tax increases need to be lower this year.

In fact, two of them are promising to cap the increase at the rate of inflation, which hovers at around 3 per cent depending on which estimate you look at.

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“Folks are facing an affordability crisis and I recognize that,” said the incumbent Hamilton mayoral candidate Andrea Horwath.

“You know the rate of inflation? There’s absolutely no reason why we shouldn’t be able to do that,” said the Hamilton mayoral candidate and Ward 8 City Counc. Rob Cooper. “We’ve got to start running the city like you run your home.”

But what the candidates disagree on is how to get there.

Hamilton households saw an over 20 per cent property tax increase over the last council term.

Hamilton’s current mayor Horwath says those hikes were necessary.

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“When I arrived at city hall, there was a huge infrastructure deficit and there needed to be a lot of investment — roads, transit, housing,” said Horwath. “That was a priority because it hadn’t been a priority in years, so in order to make that happen, that’s what I did. Having said that, I’ve also spent the last four years getting more money from other levels of government.”

The mayor says the city has received nearly $1 billion in provincial and federal money during her term.

“I can promise that you’re not going to get 25 per cent over the next four years, I mean that’s for sure,” said Hamilton mayoral candidate Keanin Loomis.

Challengers Loomis and Cooper are looking at a different approach. Loomis wouldn’t commit to a specific number that he’s targeting for the increase.

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“First of all, I get to hire the next city manager — and that person is going to be charged and empowered with doing a complete review of every single service that the city delivers,” said Loomis. “And in doing so, we’re going to go to zero-based budgeting, meaning that you don’t carry over the budget from last year, which always inevitably rises. It means you start over, you start from scratch and you justify every single expenditure in the delivery of that service.”

“We just proved that throwing money at problems doesn’t work, so I refuse to do that,” said Cooper. “We’re going to start tying what we’re spending at city hall to outcomes. I want to post our budget, and across from the budget we’re going to post our service levels. Every month we’re going to report against those service levels.”

The current city forecast for 2027 shows an 8.2 per cent property tax hike.

City staff have already been directed to bring that number down, but the extra funds need to be trimmed from somewhere.

“What I’ve heard from Hamiltonians, when we did our budget consultations, is that they want to see infrastructure improvements,” said Horwath. “They might be okay with taking the pace down a little bit to provide tax relief, and I listened to that clearly, but what we can’t do is overdo the delays.”

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“So there’s a lot of waste in the city — we see it with Aberdeen, we do a ‘shave and pave’ last year, we’re going to rip it up and put pipes under it next year,” said Cooper. “Every project the city seems to touch is over budget: the bus garage, $147 million; Tiffany-Barton, another $5 million; we even have the Sherman Cut right now that is not open on time.”

“I promise a complete review of the entire city,” said Loomis. “What I don’t want to do is pre-judge, especially as there are people’s jobs on the line.”

CHCH News also spoke with the three candidates on their plan to tackle housing, homelessness, safety and more.

Those interviews will be featured on the CHCH Evening News at 6 p.m. and on the chch.com website on Friday.

Election day is Oct. 26.

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