Waterloo Region homeowners are being crushed by year-after-year above inflation property tax increases.
I read councillor Craig’s article in CambridgeToday, providing three main reasons for excessive taxation in the Waterloo Region. He blamed everyone but the root cause – municipal government excessive spending.
Saying the Region is underfunded by the province is highly questionable. The Region of Waterloo received over 25 per cent of its 2024 operating budget in provincial and federal transfers. This is hardly chump change.
The Property Taxpayers Alliance says the Region and its cities/townships have spending problems, not revenue problems. They simply spend far too many of our hard-earned property tax dollars on niceties rather than focusing on necessities. And their salary, wage and benefit (swb) settlements are preposterous. We have a 6.8 per cent unemployment rate in Canada right now and almost 100 per cent of these unemployed come from the private sector. None of the three reasons provided by Councillor Craig explain the Region of Waterloo’s need to award themselves a 3.7 per cent across the board swb increase for 2026 when inflation is projected to be just two per cent (as predicted by the Bank of Canada).
That’s almost twice the inflation rate. And the City of Cambridge awarded its staff a 3.2 per cent across-the-board increase for salaries wages and benefits for 2026, 60 per cent higher than predicted inflation.
Who gets these kinds of SWB increases in the private sector? But we get to pay for them in our property taxes.
Municipal human resource department explanations for these extreme SWB increases (they happen year after year) are completely unacceptable and without merit. They say they are based on what other municipalities do. This is simply an easy way to bid up each other’s compensation without justification. Waterloo region and Cambridge municipal workers are not rocket scientists. They are not engaged in work that is unique or particularly special in any way. Look to the 6.8 per cent unemployed private sector workers to fill these positions, not just to other municipalities.
Better still, the province should centralize the human resources function, taking it away from Ontario municipalities to stop these excessive SWB settlements.
The municipal governments of the Waterloo Region, and Regional Chair Karen Redman, should have their feet held to the fire for these runaway SWBs that are simply dumped on the backs of hard-working property taxpayers.
Waterloo Region homeowners are being crushed by year-after-year above inflation property tax increases. Out of control municipal swb settlements are part of the reason why. We can no longer afford the runaway costs of Ontario municipalities.
It’s time Rob Flack, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, did something to take away the monopolistic pricing powers of Ontario municipalities. It’s time he started protecting homeowners from property tax abuse.
John Waylett
Cambridge
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