Please consider voting this October for municipal councillor and mayoral candidates who support bringing average annual property tax increases down in line with inflation (~ property taxpayer income growth). Vote out those who have supported property tax increases 2 to 3 times the inflation rate year after year. Cities must cut expenses and live within our means!
Cambridge, Ontario, a tier 1 municipality in the Region of Waterloo, just released its 2025 update on property tax arrears. The chart below shows the growth in arrears since 2014. From 2021 onward, Cambridge arrears have risen by a massive 60% (from 5% to 8%), almost reaching the provincial governments low risk threshold. This is not sustainable!
On average, Cambridge has raised its property taxes at almost twice the rate of inflation since 2013. Through time, this has slowly eroded away the disposable incomes of residents. Lower income homeowners are struggling, and some are having to sell their homes and move out of the community. Lower income renters struggle to pay rents that are increasing faster than their incomes year-after-year (landlords simply pass property taxes on in yearly rental increases). Some renters can no longer afford to put food on the table. They end up on the street, homeless.
The Waterloo Regional government, a tier 2 municipality, is even worse than Cambridge. Look at the chart below. Waterloo Regional Government has raised property taxes 9 years in a row, 2 – 3 times faster than inflation and the growth in the average person’s income. This is simply not sustainable!
Cambridge and the Region drive up homelessness with high property taxation, then raise property taxes to hire more staff to deal with homelessness. There is something terribly wrong with this picture.
And above inflation yearly property taxation, and rising arrears, is happening all across Ontario. Councillors and mayors pandering to special interest groups are spending as much of our hard-earned property tax dollars on “like to haves” as they are on “need to haves”.
Its time to vote the spend-spend-spend councillors out and stop the pandering to the small special interest groups.
Please vote for change – not more of the same old same old.
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