City finances thrown into 'period of chaos' by PC budget, mayor says

With each day seemingly revealing a new detail about the Ontario government's spending plans, Ottawa's mayor says the city's finances have been thrown into a "period of chaos" that will affect property taxpayers.

While thebudget tabledin mid-Aprilinitially painted a "rosy" picture, that optimism didn't last, Jim Watson said Friday.

"Then all of a sudden, piece by piece, we find in the deep bowels of the documents there are some really significant cuts thatare going to hurt a lot of people and put an extremelygreat pressure on our budgeting process for 2020 and beyond," the mayor told reporters after a finance committee meeting.

We pushed long and hard to stop the downloading. But you've cranked it back up again, and that's not good for taxpayers in Ottawa.- Mayor Jim Watson

Among other recent changes, the City of Ottawa has learned its paramedic budget is frozen, that Ottawa Public Health is infor a merger and cuts, and thatchild care centres will lose a fundwhichhelped them adjust to payinghigherwages.

Watson said he's especially perplexed that theprovince cut all of its $3.4-million fundingto Ottawa Tourism.

"The government at Queen's Park is all about job creation," Watson said. "You don't go about doing that by taking away an economic lever like tourism."

Mayor Watson reacts to provincial budget cuts

6 years ago

Duration 0:46

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson says the province downloading costs onto municipalities is 'patently unfair.'

'Patently unfair'

Watson said he has urged Premier Doug Ford, his staff and provincial cabinet ministers togive cities time to adjust.

"They've made these decisions some of them retroactively midway through our fiscal year. That's patently unfair," Watson said.

"If you're going to make these cuts, give us the runway so that we canproperly implement them without going through this whole period of chaos that we're finding ourselves in."

Watson said he's asked the citytreasurer to speed up an accounting of the extent of those changesand what they meanfor Ottawa's books.

Watson now wants to make that analysis, initially planned for July, publicwithin the next two weeks.

"We can go back to the province and say, 'Look. We pushed long and hard to stop the downloading. But you've cranked it back up again and that's not good for taxpayers in Ottawa.'"

Toronto has already done that accounting and found the provincial changes will createa $$178-million problem for its budget this year.

Watson said Ottawa mayfacesimilar difficulties, andit's a good thingthe city has healthy reserves.

"But dipping into reserves midway through fiscal year is not a way to run any kind of an organization," Watson said. "And it puts us in a deeper hole for the 2020 budget."

Tension builds

Municipalities across the province have begun fighting the changes, and the tension is increasing.

A group of mayors that includes Watson has accused the governing Progressive Conservativesof "downloading by stealth." Toronto MayorJohn Tory, one of the most vocal critics, and has trading barbs withFord over his government's first budget.

• 27 Ontario mayors slam province for downloading costs, forcing possible tax hikes
• Who wins in Ford and Tory's war of words and why it's not just empty rhetoric

On Thursday, NDPMPPJohn Vanthof asked Fordduring Question Period at Queen's Park to explain the effects of the budget changesand howhis government will work with municipalities, but the premiergave unrelated answers.

Watch the heated exchange over funding cuts at Queen's Park

5 years ago

Duration 5:14

At Queen's Park on Thursday, NDP MPP John Vanthof asked Premier Doug Ford about the increased costs that municipalities would have to bear after provincial funding cuts.

Minister ofMunicipalAffairs and HousingSteve Clark, however, did say earlier in the week that the government would be looking at the province's finances line by line.

"We made it very clear to all of our partners, whether they be Ontario's 444 municipalities, that we expected them to do the same," Clark said.

"We expected them to review every policy, every program, and every service, and put people first."