Ottawa city councillors spent much of their time Wednesday evening debating police and transit expenses before approving the 2022 municipal budget.
During this time, councillors and other stakeholders debated the feasibility of creating a new referral program to redirect distress calls from the police and sparred over making transit more affordable for communities.
Under the new budget, urban homeowners in Ottawa will be paying an additional $119 in property taxes, while rural homeowners will pay an additional $91.
Highlights from the budget include $427.3 million in spending to improve city infrastructures like roads and bridges and $27 million to non-profit social services agencies. The budget also includes a 15 per cent tax discount for qualifying small businesses, which the city estimates will benefit about 10,000.
Reduced police budget passes with strong majority
Council approved a two per cent budget increase for the Ottawa Police Service, giving the force $11.35 million in new funding but falling short of its original request for $14 million amid calls from community groups to defund the police or freeze the budget at 2021 levels.
Eighteen councillors and the mayor voted in favour of the budget increase while five councillors voted against it.
Councillor Diane Deans, who chairs the Ottawa Police Services Board, presented a motion that was unanimously approved by council to divert $550,000 of the $2.65 million that the city’s Community and Social Services Department would have received to develop a call referral program.
Soon after, Coun. Jean Cloutier presented a motion that was also approved to allocate the remaining $2.1 million to supporting youth and mental health programs.
While councillors mostly supported the reduced increase, some expressed worries the funding cut will lead to poorer service.
Deans pushed back on the concerns, saying the OPSB ensured the reduction would not impact frontline services.
“I know there’s some fear-mongering that’s happening in the community about the sky falling, but the sky’s not going to fall because we’re asking the police service to find $2 million in additional savings,” Deans said.
Ottawa police chief Peter Sloly said while the reduction presents opportunities to try new community safety models, with or without police, it also presents risks like a year-end deficit that council would need to pay or police being ill-equipped to handle unplanned natural disasters.
Sloly cautioned the budget’s demand for police to find an extra $2 million in savings on top of the $5.1 million the OPS has already pledged, saying the request is “an extremely aggressive goal” as the OPS typically finds $2 million per year but is committed to doing everything it can to find the money.
Sloly also highlighted the challenge of creating a call referral program, saying that a triage service that determines who should receive calls and dispatches a combination of resources for people in distress “is one of the most complicated pieces of business I could ever imagine.”
Councillors Catherine McKenney, Shawn Menard and Jeff Leiper voted against the budget, calling for more money to be directed to communities. Leiper said the pandemic has been “revelatory” because of community health centres and other newer resources that his community has called for support.
“I feel as though my community is a safer place because we have real answers,” Leiper said. “Not just calling the default, which is the police when you have concerns.”
Councillors Rick Chiarelli and Jan Harder also voted against the budget, indicating they supported giving more money to the police.
Councillors debate transit affordability
The evening’s transit discussion began with councillors striking down a motion by McKenney that proposed taking a 2.5 per cent fare increase from the budget and transferring the cost to the property tax base, raising the transit levy from 4.5 per cent to nearly 6 per cent.
McKenney said through their motion, the cost of transit per month would shift from an extra $3 per user to 91 cents per homeowner.
Mayor Jim Watson, however, said “we can’t stick our head in the sand” and ignore the city’s long-term financial plan that calls for annual fare increases to cover transit costs.
During the discussion, Councillor Carol Anne Meehan said bus drivers she’s spoken to say half of transit riders aren’t paying their fares. Transportation officials said fare inspectors have been focused on COVID protocols and have not been doing inspections, but there is currently no data to verify whether fareless rides are happening.
“If we’re not enforcing fares, I’d say we’re hemorrhaging money,” Meehan said.
McKenney retorted the point, saying people who sneak onto buses do it out of necessity.
“People need help. If we don’t give it to them, they get it for themselves. It is called survival,” McKenney said.
Despite striking McKenney’s motion, councillors approved other proposals to make transit more affordable, including a motion by Coun. Riley Brockington to make transit free for children up to seven years old. Fares were previously free for children up to five years old.
Councillors also approved portions of the transit budget which include freezing the 2.5 per cent fare increase until all 15 trains are back in service and providing 2,000 transit passes to emergency shelter clients.
Councillors speak out against budget in final statements
Before the final vote, some councillors expressed dissatisfaction with the budget, saying it wasn’t bold enough.
McKenney said the budget is the worst one they’ve seen in the last eight years of their time on council.
“I look forward to another term of council where perhaps we will turn that page and we will start to look toward the future with a vision to what people, what we all want in this city. And that is a much better city than what we’re building today on Dec. 8, 2021,” they added.
Deans criticized the budget process and said it is clear to communities that budget decisions are made long before they reach city council.
“There are parts of this budget that are supportable, but overall this budget is very underwhelming,” Deans said. “The world has changed around us and yet this budget is business as usual.”
The final budget was approved in a 16-8 vote.
Featured image by Spencer Colby.
