Councillor Cameron Kroetsch (Ward 2 – Downtown Hamilton) recently blasted Hamilton Mayor Andrea Horwath over the 2026 budget process in his ward newsletter.
When Horwath was first elected mayor in October 2022, Kroetsch appeared to be one of her allies on Council.
Back in 2022, Kroetsch said that he was “really looking forward to a Mayor who communicates clearly, avoids platitudes and generalizations, and will treat Hamiltonians with the respect they deserve.”
“I am hopeful that Mayor-Elect Horwath will do that work and make us all proud,” he continued.
Kroetsch and Horwath were also endorsed in 2022 by two of the same left-wing organizations – the Hamilton and District Labour Council (HLDC) and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) Canada.
Under the province’s strong mayor powers, Hamilton’s mayor has now played a larger role in setting the city’s budget for the past two years since a new budget process was implemented.
After councilors were unhappy with how the 2025 budget process unfolded, Kroetsch said that Horwath “promised to make the necessary changes.”
Instead, he wrote that the 2026 budget process was “rushed, top-down, and arbitrary.”
“This has resulted in a lack of consultation with Councillors, ignoring the needs of Boards and Agencies, and setting an unfair expectation that city staff work around the clock to meet the mayor’s late timelines,” he continued.
Kroetsch also objected to Horwath’s 4.25 per cent budget directive.
Horwath did not set a specific budget target during the 2025 budget process and said at the time that setting any type of cap “risks underfunding critical programs and infrastructure, and which results in significant deficiencies for Hamiltonians and inflated costs over time.”
Kroetsch also criticized the fact that Horwath issued her Mayoral Directive regarding the budget on Oct. 7, 2025, whereas Burlington Mayor Marianne Meed Ward issued hers on July 15, 2025, and even brought it forward to Council for approval.
“To be very blunt, that hasn’t been my experience at all. I’ve spent this term trying to work with the Mayor, from day one. I enthusiastically showed up, very early in the term, with a concrete list of suggestions for motions we could collaborate on, hoping to work with someone I wrongly perceived might be aligned with me on a number of shared goals, only to have my suggestions openly ignored, not followed up on, and even actively opposed,” Kroetsch continued.
Kroetsch also says that the City of Hamilton should implement “equity-based budgeting” and analyze budget impacts on “equity-seeking groups.”
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.
