Hamilton City Council has officially asked the Government of Ontario to rescind the Strong Mayor Powers that it granted the municipality after a General Issues Committee motion passed on a unanimous 16-0 vote.
However, it should be noted that opposition by Hamilton Councillors to the Strong Mayor Powers did not come about through the usage of the new abilities, but through “a new interpretation of Strong Mayor Powers pertaining to the 2025 Property Tax Budget process whereby only amending motions to the budget were permitted instead of debate and direction on the budget as a whole and the associated property tax increase.”
The 2025 Property Tax Budget process was the first time that Hamilton Councillors were directed to use a new system of budget deliberations.
Whereas Councillors were able to propose more widespread amendments to the budget and motions to direct staff during the 2024 Property Tax Budget process, this year multiple motions were deemed “out of order.”
Additionally, in the past Councillors were able to directly vote in favour or against the budget as a whole at the end of their deliberations.
This year, Councillors were only able to bring forward amendments to the budget and final approval was a power reserved for the mayor only.
After considering those factors, Council voted to “ask the Ontario Premier to exempt the City of Hamilton from the use of Strong Mayor Powers.”
Additionally, Councillors directed “that the City of Hamilton Finance and Legal staff research and report back on how other municipalities that have Strong Mayor Powers applied the Strong Mayor Powers to their budget process, if at all.”
The motion came after a press release from five Hamilton Councillors in February, which called the city’s 2025 Property Tax Budget process and the corresponding tax increase “rushed and undemocratic” as a result of the new budget system.
The press release came from Councillor Mike Spadafora’s office (Ward 14 – West Mountain) but also included comments from Matt Francis (Ward 5 – Hamilton East-Stoney Creek), Esther Pauls (Ward 7 – Central Mountain), Brad Clark (Ward 9 – Upper Stoney Creek), and Jeff Beattie (Ward 10 – Stoney Creek-Fruitland-Winona).
The Councillors noted that despite a 5.6 per cent property tax increase for Hamilton residents in 2025, the city’s spending actually increased by 11.3 per cent.
They also note that Hamilton’s property taxes have increased by 18.2 per cent over the last three years.
In the media release, Spadafora says, “We were told as Councillors that there would be a new budget process this year and that we could not bring forward any motions that asked staff to bring back a budget with a lower property tax increase.”
“Instead, we were instructed to only bring forward amendments to the budget in a rather tight window of time, with the caveat being that the Mayor could veto any amendments passed, and that ultimately, there would be no formal vote on the overall budget.”
Beattie added that Councillors brought forward motions that would have “deferred spending to a future year, just like we would do if this were a business,” but that he was told that, through the new budget process, nothing could be deferred.
“This isn’t how things work in the real world,” stated Beattie.
The five Councillors also called upon Mayor Horwath to “issue her Mayoral Directive for the 2026 property tax budget much sooner in 2025 so that Councillors can receive the 2026 budget book as early as December 2025, granting them far more time to review the budget and make budgetary amendments in early 2026.”
Based in Hamilton, he reaches hundreds of thousands of people monthly on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. He has been published in The Hamilton Spectator, Stoney Creek News, and Bay Observer. He has also been a segment host with Cable 14 Hamilton. In 2017, he received the Chancellor Full Tuition Scholarship from the University of Ottawa (BA, 2022). He has also received the Governor General’s Academic Medal. He formerly worked in a non-partisan role on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
