Toronto City Hall appears to be delivering on Mayor Olivia Chow’s promises to fight crime and keep life affordable in a very expensive city in this year’s budget.
Chow tabled a budget that passed unanimously through the city council. However, the budget was almost certainly motivated by the upcoming 2026 municipal election.
Since the mayor kept the property tax increase at the rate of inflation and invested in the suburban communities she needs for re-election, her political prospects were clearly top of mind when putting this together. It was clear that her critics were correct about Chow’s motivations behind the budget.
During the budget debate on the council floor last Tuesday, Councillor Brad Bradford lamented that the mayor was “effectively trying to buy Torontonians’ votes with this budget.”
The property tax increase best exemplifies this. It has been kept at 2.2 per cent this year, compared to 6.9 percent in 2025 and 9.5 percent in 2024. There is no coincidence that this comes in an election year. The mayor needs popularity to keep her job, and higher taxes are unpopular with many Toronto residents.
Nevertheless, the budget included many great things, such as the development of new public housing units and increased funding for public transit. Despite its expenditure of more than $1 billion, even conservative critics like Bradford approved. The criticism is more focused on tax increases, and this criticism is valid, albeit a bit flawed.
Chow is far from the first Toronto mayor to implement policy based on personal political ambitions. John Tory kept taxes at or below the rate of inflation for his nine years in office. Rob Ford did the same.
To her credit, Chow’s mayoralty has largely been an improvement from both Tory’s and Ford’s. The increase in funding to everything from the TTC to public libraries has been successful for the city, even if higher taxes have been necessary.
Chow was also experiencing pressure from the Toronto Police to increase its yearly budget. Consequently, this year’s police budget included a $93 million increase, bringing the total police budget to $1.43 billion.
This is money that would apparently go towards hiring hundreds of new police officers and improving crime prevention throughout the city.
With seven Toronto police officers recently charged as part of an investigation into tow-truck violence by York Regional Police, the move does not appear very timely. Still, the mayor cannot be blamed for a mere coincidence in timing.
Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw has said the increased budget focuses on frontline officers.
“It continues to support our multi-year hiring plan, ensuring more officers are on the frontline to improve responses to residents when they need us the most,” he said after the Toronto Police Services Board approved the Toronto Police’s budget request in December.
It is unusual for a left-wing progressive to be a strong supporter of the police, or at least when they’re not holding elected office. When they’re a community activist, that appears to be a different story.
Still, this aspect of the Budget was quite beneficial, much like the affordable housing and TTC investments also included in it.
The 2026 City of Toronto Budget was a clear indication that Chow is a popular politician at City Hall and with city officials, but also that the looming municipal election on Oct. 26 was quite influential in shaping the city's annual fiscal proposal.
Toronto voters will decide this fall whether she will be re-elected. Still, her success with this year’s budget clearly indicates that her policies have bipartisan support within Toronto’s city council.
