Mayor Olivia Chow Faces Economic Challenges Ahead of City Budget Debate

Mayor Olivia Chow's spending plan, which had been sailing along largely without controversy, has now found itself overshadowed by the threat of tariffs and economic attacks from the United States.

On Monday, as Chow made her final pitch for the 2025 city budget ahead of it being debated at council Tuesday, she said preparations were being made to weather economic attacks from the United States.

"It's going to be a chaotic four years," Chow said to a room full of reporters and about two dozen children in an Etobicoke middle school Monday morning.

"We have to be strategic, we have to know precisely what we are reacting to, and we have to target our support in an intelligent way," she said.

The city's financial analysts are assessing the situation, the mayor said, but there are no firm plans yet, outside of a push from council to buy local. This, she said, is largely because the full extent of the U.S.'s threats is not yet clear.

Chow had, on two occasions that morning, solicited cheers of nationalistic fervour from the audience of children, asking them if they are "proud Canadians."

On Monday, the mayor's most vocal critic on council derided her response to the potential trade war as "empty platitudes," and said city hall needs to do more to protect Toronto jobs.

At a campaign-style announcement at a fastener factory in Scarborough, Coun. Brad Bradford (Ward 19, Beaches-East York) said he planned to move an amendment to Chow's budget that would cut property taxes for industry and small businesses by 25 per cent.

He said the measures would give relief to 3,500 industrial producers and 30,000 small businesses, helping them survive the coming economic storm. The tax cut for industry would cost $30 million, and Bradford said it could be paid for out of the city's tax stabilization fund. The lower rate for small businesses would be revenue neutral, paid for by raising taxes on larger commercial properties.

"It's a time for your local government in Toronto to step up and take real action to protect our jobs, our businesses, and our economy," he said.

Bradford would need the support of at least 13 of his colleagues on the 26-member council to amend Chow's budget. He told reporters he'd had conversations with councillors and "some of them are very supportive," but didn't say how many he expected to vote with him.

Coun. Jon Burnside (Ward 16, Don Valley East) said he doesn't like deciding on anything with taxpayers' money until he has a full picture. It's "extremely premature" to prepare any permanent actions right now, whether it's municipal, provincial, or federal, he said.

"I think we need to slow everything down. We don't know if it's a shower, a storm, or a hurricane," Burnside said of the tariffs.

Chow used the final day before the Tuesday budget meeting to again extoll the virtues of her expanded student nutrition program. The program will receive a $6 million funding boost this year, taken from the $320 million generated from a 6.9 per cent tax increase.

Advocacy group Progress Toronto has used it as a cudgel to attack Chow's opponents on council, who have been urging her to scale back her proposed property tax increase and take more concrete steps to protect Toronto businesses from a possible U.S. tariff war.

At least one member of what the group has termed council's "conservative cutting crew" -- accused of wanting to "take school meals away from hungry students" by opposing the property tax hike -- seemed to have changed his tune Monday, appearing alongside Chow in support of the program.

Coun. Vincent Crisanti (Ward 1, Etobicoke North) said Monday it is "totally unacceptable" that families and children are going hungry and that he would be supporting the increase to the food program, despite arguing in a Toronto Sun op-ed last month that Toronto taxpayers "should not be footing this bill."

Chow said she is "totally open" to councillors' participation in amending the budget Tuesday, though she suggested they stick to making use of the $3 million in unallocated funds she reserved for them. Thanks to her strong mayor powers, she does not need council to approve her budget.

Coun. Shelley Carroll, who's also the budget chief, is expected to move an "omnibus" motion that will outline a package of ways to carve up that remaining money and grant some councillors' requests while balancing others made across the city.

Coun. Dianne Saxe (Ward 11, University-Rosedale) noted it's not a lot of money to go around, but she wants to see half a million dedicated to cost-effective ways in protecting Toronto's nature. Namely, she said, more city staff or volunteers to upkeep its ravines and natural areas as well as watering and pruning the thousands of trees the city plants every year.

"It's just making better use of what we're already spending," Saxe said.

According to budget documents, if the city's auditor general doesn't get an extra $150,000 this year, Toronto's accountability watchdog of the public purse may have to put off investigating at least one of the three "high priority" probes into cybersecurity assessments. This is so it can triage its work and money to meet a council directive that asked for a forensic investigation into the botched procurement process, which led to a controversial contract with U.S. company PayIt.

"I think that's where the focus should be -- at the very least -- just to finish the PayIt audit," said Coun. Jamaal Myers (Ward 23, Scarborough North), who wants to prioritize the office that can audit city efficiencies and spending since every dollar invested into that office leads to an $11 return.

Coun. Chris Moise, whose Toronto Centre ward is one of the most marginalized in the city, wants at least half a million put into the city's creation of health hubs.

"I just think it's important to support those who are under housed," he said. "We can provide reliable access to fresh food for them on a weekly basis."

One councillor told the Star that while former mayor John Tory used unallocated funds to make peace offerings with members of council who didn't see eye to eye with him, under Chow the pot of money looks set to be divided among councillors already allied with the mayor.

"I think there's a certain arrogance to the mayor's office that they don't feel they need to make peace with certain people, that they have the votes to get what they want," said Burnside, an at-times Chow critic.

"This budget is informed by tens of thousands of Torontonians, who directly shared their views," said Chow's press secretary Zeus Eden in an emailed statement Monday evening. "They told us about the need to build more homes faster, feed more kids and get Toronto moving -- that's exactly what this budget does."