Councillor Cameron Kroetsch (Ward 2 – Downtown Hamilton) faced scrutiny at a recent Audit, Finance, and Administration Committee meeting after submitting a nine-page motion that will see his office hand out 53 community grants.
The community grants program was started in 2012 and was a result of debates surrounding Hamilton’s area-rated municipal property tax policy.
Under area rating, rural property owners pay a lower municipal property tax rate for items such as transit since they do not receive the same level of service as urban property owners.
Some representatives at the time felt it was unfair that rural residents paid a lower tax rate, so the community grant program was created for the City of Hamilton’s original eight wards, which are urban.
The program was originally intended for councillors to assign to specific infrastructure projects in their ward, but the nature of the grants has changed over time, and councillors now use the funding for a wide array of initiatives.
For example, Kroetsch’s list of $101,400 in grants includes funding to the Hamilton Community Legal Clinic for promotional materials for their Queer Justice Project, funds to McMaster University for costs associated with conducting research into heat impacts on Residential Care Facilities, funding to the Sex Workers’ Action Program (SWAP) Hamilton for “reproduction fees to acquire archival footage and materials related to sex worker history in Canada,” funding for a “Pride family picnic” in Eastwood Park, and funding to YWCA Hamilton for a “Celebrating Pride Rainbow Reading Party and Rainbow Picnic.”
Kroetsch explained to the committee that he normally holds quarterly application periods throughout the year, but with the municipal election campaign period beginning on May 1, 2026, he sought to have all grants for 2026 approved at one time.
Councillor Brad Clark (Ward 9 – Upper Stoney Creek), took issue with Kroetsch’s motion.
Clark said that the funding “is really crossing all over the place,” compared to the original intent of the program.
“I get that over time the program seems to have morphed from its original intent of capital to what is classified as social infrastructure, but I think it’s gone too far now and I can’t support it. So I just oppose the entire thing,” said Clark.
Nevertheless, Kroetsch’s motion passed 7-1 at committee with only Councillor Clark voting against.
At City Council as a whole, where the result had to be ratified, Clark was joined by Councillor Rob Cooper (Ward 8 – West/Central Mountain) in voting against Kroetsch’s 53 grants.
Kroetsch wrote in a newsletter to his constituents that when he was elected in 2022, he implemented criteria for submissions, a scoring methodology, and a requirement for organizations to provide receipts for how the money was spent.
He also limited the grants in his ward to a maximum of $5,000 and says that he required all funding to go to organizations with not-for-profit status and to those who have “demonstrated a clear community benefit.”
Kroetsch’s scoring system gives 30 points for financial need, 30 points for “merit”, 20 points for “benefit to the community,” 15 points if funds “support members of equity-seeking groups,” and five points if funds will be used “to implement an innovation solution” or “help to make an existing program or service more sustainable.”
Councillor Mark Tadeson (Ward 11 – Glanbrook-Binbrook-Mount Hope) also brought forward a motion to hand out $20,000 in community grants to 18 organizations in his ward using non-property tax revenue from a cellular tower license agreement.
That motion passed as well and was opposed by both Clark and Cooper.
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.
