'Painful' financial situation has Sutcliffe switching tone on taxes

As he expresses concerns about a looming financial crisis in Ottawa, Mayor Mark Sutcliffe is warning that residents may see higher taxes coming their way.

But during his mayoral campaign in 2022, his objective was the opposite.

"I'm running for you to keep taxes low, to fix LRT and improve our roads," Sutcliffe said in one Facebook post two years ago.

Sutcliffe's shifting tone comes as he calls out both the provincial and federal governments for a lack of fair funding.

At a press conference Thursday, Sutcliffe said there are major areas where Ottawa is disproportionately burdened compared to other Ontario cities.

Sutcliffe said the federal government is shortchanging Ottawa on the payments it makes in lieu of paying property taxes to the tune of nearly $100 million, while transit revenues are down as public servants are making fewer trips downtown.

He also blamed the province, arguing that they were funding transit systems in and around Toronto to a much larger extent than in the nation's capital.

"Without getting help from the other levels of government, it's going to be very painful," Sutcliffe said. "We'll have to raise taxes and transit fares enormously or we'll have to cut service drastically."

Orléans MPP Stephen Blais, a former city councillor, said he's been warning the city about this for years. 

"I'm glad that the mayor is finally coming on board with the idea that we need to be more forceful with our demands of the higher orders of government," he said. 

"I wish he had done so when he got elected two years ago, but you know, better late than never."

City spending in question

Neil Saravanamuttoo, a director of the non-profit CityShapes and expert on public finance, said it wasn't "fair" to put the blame solely on other levels of government and that the city has to take some responsibility for this crisis. 

"For example, putting $500 million into Lansdowne. Is this the time that we want to be spending money on a stadium that, quite frankly, is in perfectly good shape?" he asked.

"So these are the priorities that we're spending on, and it's no wonder that we have no money left over to spend on transit, affordable housing or for other priorities like that."

Saravanamuttoo also noted that Sutcliffe's opponent in the 2022 election, Catherine McKenney, was in favour of a three per cent annual tax increase, compared to Sutcliffe's 2.5 per cent. 

"Two years ago during the mayoral debates, Catherine McKenney at the time said that Mark Sutcliffe had a very large hole in his budget, and of course, that was contested at that time," said Saravanamuttoo, who worked on McKenney's campaign. 

"It turns out that that appears to be the case."

Kanata-Carleton MP Jenna Sudds, the federal minister of families, children and social development, also released a statement on X (formerly Twitter) in response to the mayor's comments. 

"We at the federal level take this responsibility seriously, especially at a time when the people of Ottawa are watching their pocketbooks," Sudds said.

"And the City of Ottawa is not exempt from this responsibility either."