MP Jenna Sudds to City of Ottawa: Get your own house in order

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Ottawa city council should look at its own tight-fisted budgets before pleading with the federal government for more money, says Kanata-Carleton MP Jenna Sudds, the capital region’s senior member of Parliament.

“As a city council that has maintained property tax increases at less than the rate of inflation, there are arguably challenges with those decisions and whether they’re sustainable,” Sudds told reporters Friday after announcing a $14.1-million federal investment in skilled trades training in the city.

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“I look to other major cities across Canada and we’re seeing property tax increases of seven, eight, nine, 10 per cent,” said Sudds, the federal minister of Families, Children and Social Development. “I don’t want to see that here in Ottawa, and I’ll continue to work with the mayor and member of council to endeavour to find fiscally responsible ways to support them. But they need to do their homework as well.”

Last week, Mayor Mark Sutcliffe began a public campaign, urging Ottawa residents to join him in pressuring the federal and Ontario governments to pay more of their share for city services and transit. Sutcliffe has asked people to sign a “Fairness for Ottawa” petition on his personal webpage and has written an opinion piece to be published by the Ottawa Citizen.

“The federal government is the largest property owner in the city and uses a lot of municipal resources. But, while your property taxes have been rising, the federal government has been paying less and less,” Sutcliffe wrote.

Since one level of government can’t tax another, the federal government makes Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) for its properties, based on evaluations of their worth by the minister of Public Services and Procurement Canada. Sutcliffe says the feds have been lowballing the value of their property to keep PILTs low. PILT payments to the city — from federal properties, the National Capital Commission and Crown corporations — are $30 million a year less than they were eight years ago, he said.

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But Sutcliffe also promised during his election campaign to hold property-tax increases to 2.5 per cent — a promise he kept despite strident objections from a few councillors and the fact that inflation was 6.8 per cent in 2022 and 3.9 per cent in 2023.

In comparison, Hamilton’s property taxes climbed 4.3 per cent this year; Waterloo’s 6.1 per cent, London, Ont., passed a four-year budget with an average annual increase of 7.5 per cent; and Toronto taxes jumped a whopping 9.5 per cent.

“I think, as the mayor has said, he’s got some very large financial challenges in front of him and in front of council,” Sudds told reporters.

Sudds said she spoke with Sutcliffe at least once a week and would continue to try to help find a solution. She pointed to $173 million in federal Housing Accelerator Funds given to Ottawa, another $50 million available for supportive housing and federal funding for the LRT and the purchase of electric buses.

“The city budget is the responsibility of the mayor and council alone,” she said. “By no means do I want to see a reduction in transit and the level of services that Ottawa residents receive, but ultimately this is the responsibility of the mayor and of city council, not of the federal government.”

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