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On September 2, City Council’s Finance and Corporate Services Committee considered the "directions" for the 2026 municipal budget—that is, the basic lines by which the budget will be drawn.
This is an important exercise: a budget embeds a city's priorities.
Ecology Ottawa delegated at this meeting, calling for increased investment into transit, transparency on the emissions our budgetary decisions produce, and more accessible high-level information about our city's finances. You can read our delegation below or listen to it here.
Given the importance of the municipal budget, we'll be tracking it closely along its process. The next step is its tabling at City Council's November 12 meeting, after which it heads to committees for their consideration of the portions pertaining to them. For more budget information, see the City's 2026 Budget webpage; see also their "Understanding your City Budget" page.
City Council's Finance and Corporate Services Committee meets on September 2 to discuss the 2026 Budget Directions.
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Thank you for the opportunity to address you.
I’ll begin with a couple wins in this year’s budget process.
First, we were among those who asked that budget consultations be held earlier than normal, to more meaningfully incorporate public input into the budget. We were pleased to see earlier consultations permitted this year, and that a handful of councillors hosted sessions. We’d still like to know how the feedback from these sessions was incorporated into the Directions; was there an As We Heard It report? How were the Directions changed as a result of what was heard?
Second, we were pleased to see the City’s Strategic Priorities at least acknowledged in this year’s Directions. Their absence was one of our main criticisms last year.
Now our concerns with this year’s Budget Directions.
Transit
We noticed that transit is separated out again this year, although it’s unclear what’s behind this approach. Is it to call attention to transit’s cost? It’s true that transit is a large budget line; but that’s normal for municipal budgets. Or is it to call attention to the need for funding from other levels of government? We would certainly support that; but in the meantime, Ottawans need major transit investments.
We’re particularly concerned with the stated goal of “financial sustainability” for transit. While it’s unclear what this term means, it suggests something like a break-even scenario, which we think is misguided. We don’t impose such expectations on many other municipal services, like emergency response, libraries, roads, or parks; instead, we’ve collectively decided that such services are in the public interest, and worthy of investment. Transit is no different: it benefits all Ottawans, whether or not they’re using it. It gets people around efficiently and safely, relieves congestion, and keeps our air cleaner.
Indeed, transit lies at the heart of at least two of the City's Strategic Priorities:
2. “A city that is more connected with reliable, safe and accessible mobility options.”
3. “A city that is green and resilient.”
But with inadequate reliability in transit and fare costs rising—including the cancellation of the Youth Pass that took effect yesterday—many Ottawans are forced to rely on car travel or simply forgo travel. Meanwhile, the average annual cost of a private vehicle is over $16,000. We’re flirting with a transit death spiral, if we’re not already in one, and we urgently need to break it. Hiking fares, cutting corners on operations, and deferring capital investments won’t do this.
Climate
It’s good to see the climate lens mentioned again, as committed in the Official Plan. But we reiterate our call from previous years that this include not only what emissions are reduced, but also what emissions will be generated. In other words, we need to know the net effect of our budgetary decisions on emissions. Moreover, the climate lens should be applied not just to capital expenditures, but also operational ones.
High-level financial picture
Finally, I want to highlight a few points in a submission from the Peoples Official Plan coalition, of which we’re a member, that relate to the Budget Directions’ higher-level view. This letter made four requests:
- Time-Series Data on Key Operating Budget Categories: Multi-year (preferably 10-year) historical data—both total and per-capita—for major operational categories, such as Debt Financing, Fire Services, Social Services, to clarify how budgetary commitments to different sectors have evolved over time
- Sectoral Balance Visualizations: Illustrations of changes in the relative share of each spending category within the total operating budget over time, to identify long-term shifts in resource allocation and better assess trade-offs between sectors
- Contextual Reporting on Declared Emergencies: Year-over-year spending trends related to where City Council has declared an emergency—namely 1) climate and 2) housing and homelessness, to clarify whether the urgency signaled by these declarations is reflected in actual budget allocations and trends
- Forward and Backward-looking Report on Debt: A 10-year backward and 10-year forward projection of debt for tax, rate and strategic projects, to illustrate he complete picture arising out of the separately approved Long Range Financial plans and multi-year investment and capital plans
While we requested this information for the Budget Directions report, I would now ask that this information be included in the budget documents to be tabled this fall.
Thank you.
