Hamiltonians have different priorities for what they want to see, or not see, in the City of Hamilton’s 2026 budget.
Eleven Hamiltonians took the podium inside Council Chambers on Monday afternoon (Nov. 17, 2025) to share their priorities with City Council.
Some delegates called for immediate fiscal restraint to address affordability pressures. Other delegates called for increased funding for housing, social services, and climate action to address affordability pressures.
Mayor Andrea Horwath has targeted a “Hold-the-Line” operating budget property tax levy increase of 4.25 per cent. The “Hold-the-Line” directive permits departments, boards, and agencies to use debt financing and accounting methods to temporarily delay tax increases.
The budget deliberations are under the cloud of uncertainty as city hall is not releasing basic financial information. The city has not completed its audits for 2023 and 2024. It has not released any revenue or spending information since late in 2023. The City of Hamilton claims it’s unable to do so due to the February 2024 cybersecurity incident.
The ongoing failure to provide basic financial information led to a credit rating downgrade by S&P Global Ratings in October, which cited “weakness in financial management, particularly with regard to transparency, disclosure, and risk management practices.”
While Mayor Horwath publicly responded that the downgraded rating still reflects a “solid foundation,” the downgrade will increase the city’s future debt costs, potentially costing Hamiltonians millions of dollars in added interest charges.
Delegations and Submissions: Fiscal Restraint and Responsibility
Ward 3 resident Carol Andrews voiced fears that rising property taxes are putting her at risk of losing her home.
“A lot of us have lost our jobs in Hamilton. We’re homeowners. This increase will absolutely kill us,” she said. “It will put me on the street because I can’t live anywhere cheaper than my house.”
Andrews said Hamilton Police should not receive an increase to their budget, until “they prove that they deserve it.”
“We need to see officers out there,” she said.
Ward 8 resident Michael Chiarelli called for an immediate tax freeze and spending controls, stating in a written letter that this council has done “virtually nothing has been done to control spending, pause non-essential spending nor give taxpayers priority.”
Ward 13 resident Karl Schaefer asked that “any increase in taxes should be at or below the current rate of inflation,” in his letter to council.
Ward 12 resident Mazhar Roshan wrote that he is not receiving value for the “almost $19,000 per year” in property taxes assessed to his home.
Delegate Seth Floyd called for council to consider why there is a public “outcry”, citing increased taxation recently, saying “the public has lost trust in the efficiency of the use of the tax dollars.”
He stated, “a greater focus on the scrutiny of taxpayer spending is much overdue” and called on council to address the Hamilton Police budget, noting the city spends more on policing than it does for “social services, public health, paramedics and housing combined” and “therefore it should come as no surprise that we have crises” in those areas.
“Police spending has outrun inflation by 50 per cent or more. It has risen faster than expenditures on transit and social services, and yet trend analysis has indicated zero correlation between increased spending and crime reduction,” he said. “Now to be clear, do not take this as criticism of the Hamilton Police Service, nor the brave men and women it is comprised of.”
Calls for Increased Investment in Social Services, Climate Justice, and Supports
Ward 2 resident Karl Andrus, Executive Director of the Hamilton Community Benefits Network, opened his remarks noting “this year is an especially challenging budget not just because it’s the last budget you will pass before the election.”
“It’s a budget that places you as our municipal leaders in the most impossible of places,” he continued. “You are the frontline of all of the challenges, crises and problems of our local society … with a provincial government that increasingly continues to download the cost of suffering into your laps.”
Andrus called on council members to reject calls for austerity that will harm the most vulnerable in society, and to invest more to address the expanding affordable housing waitlist, protect tenants from exploitation, tackle the infrastructure deficit, and to provide more support to those who are unhoused.
He says investing now “will save the city millions in future,” and added that “long-term investments take time to produce.”
Ian Borsuk, Executive Director of Environment Hamilton, urged council to step up where higher levels of government are failing, arguing, “We need to upend the status quo and make historic investments in housing, climate change adaptation and mitigation and even more.”
“I envy you, you have the power to step up, show courage and do the hard work of explaining to Hamiltonians what we need to do to get out of the hole that we’re in. Right now, in the City of Hamilton, you have a strong possibility of reducing harm.”
Jacqueline St. Pierre, also of the Hamilton Community Benefits Network, emphasized that the budget needs to include “justice, housing, transit, and climate resilience planning” as priorities.
“I’m asking you to centre them in this year’s budget because I know firsthand what a hand up can do,” St. Pierre said. “There was a moment in my life when someone reached in when a program, a service, a piece of community support caught me before I slipped through the cracks and those interventions, those votes of confidence in my potential reshaped the entire arc of my future.”
Ward 1 resident Miriam Sager said council should be mindful of “the commitment to the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant” and its call for “a thoughtful, sharing and caring society where resources are shared peacefully and respectfully and we leave the dish clean for others to use.”
She called on council to increase funding for “respectful Indigenous consultations, a strong Office of Climate Change Initiatives, and a well-financed climate change reserve.”
Isabelle Caven, a second-year medical student at McMaster University, called on council to provide more services to protect vulnerable lives.
She listed providing air conditioners to low-income Hamiltonians as an effective public health initiative and asked council to expand it beyond those with documented medical conditions, adding the city should create “24/7 spaces for community members, including those who are unhoused, in response to the growing impacts of extreme heat and cold.”
Caven called on council to remove funding for encampment enforcement from the budget, stating, “I urge the city to fund budget items that promote equity and resilience and work to create dignity for everyone in this city.”
Farseema Delgosha, also a second-year MD student, called for the city to provide warming centres and supports.
“There is currently no plan to mobilize overnight emergency warming centres,” Delgosha said, expressing concern ahead of the Winter Response Strategy’s December 1 start date, saying the cold does not follow the city’s calendar and a year-round response is required.
The city needs “to take preventative action or as we call it in medicine, a prophylactic approach to make adjustments to our future city budget and efforts to better tackle these issues in the coming year,” she said.
Ward 2 resident Jon Davey called for greater action on Vision Zero goals, including building multimodal infrastructure and improving transit frequency and quality.
Davey said monthly bus pass rates should be decreased below what the city charges for parking downtown.
Mayor Horwath on the Delegations
Following the public delegations, Mayor Horwath described the budget process as a “balancing act.”
“I think that’s what some of the diverse conversations, ideas, suggestions, and recommendations show—that it is definitely a balancing act.”
Hamiltonians will have another opportunity to delegate during the day on Monday, January 19, 2026, following the release of the draft 2026 budget. Interested delegates can contact the City Clerk by email, clerk@hamilton.ca, to register.
City Council no longer holds meetings outside of business hours, and eliminated the once-per-year 7:00 p.m. evening public delegation session.
Production Details
v. 1.0.0
Published: November 18, 2025
Last updated: November 18, 2025
Author: Joey Coleman
Update Record
v. 1.0.0 original version