Can’t cut your way to being a better city

The powers that be in Winnipeg have pushed for cheap property taxes for decades. As a result, the city doesn’t have enough money to balance the books, let alone maintain infrastructure, deliver services and respond to challenges like homelessness and the toxic drug crisis.

Winnipeg’s fiscal problem stems from decades of keeping property-tax increases below inflation and relying on inadequate revenues to fund a growing city. The result? Today, Winnipeg spends less money per person on city services than it did in 2001.

A look at the books at city hall is stark. Winnipeg has run a deficit almost every year since the COVID-19 pandemic because of climate-change-driven heavy ice and snowstorms, higher fuel costs and increased policing overtime. During this time, city council tried to cut and freeze public service spending where it could; as a result, community services have been cut to the bone.

Departments responsible for what makes a city a good place to live have been squeezed. Since 1999, community services — responsible for libraries, recreation, swimming lessons and aspects of Winnipeg’s poverty-reduction work — has 149 fewer staff positions, an 18 per cent reduction, even as the city’s population has grown 35 per cent, or by 220,000 people.

By choosing low taxes, we have, over decades, accepted lower municipal spending and fewer public resources.

According to the city’s own comparisons, Winnipeg’s operating expenditures per person are among the lowest in Canada: $2,463 per capita, compared with $3,209 in Edmonton, $3,302 in Calgary, $4,107 in Vancouver, $4,324 in Ottawa and $4,945 in Toronto. The average annual property tax increase for Canadian cities is typically around five per cent, whereas Mayor Gillingham increased property taxes by 3.5, 3.5, 5.95, and 3.5 percent annually over his term. Police, public works (road renewal) and fire and paramedic services gained; the rest of city services have suffered.

Affordability cannot be measured by the size of the tax bill alone. We also have to consider what residents must pay for themselves when public services are inadequate.

When recreation programs disappear, families pay privately or do not exercise. When transit is unreliable, people who can afford it drive and those who can’t struggle. When neighbourhood infrastructure deteriorates, residents pay in higher insurance and maintenance costs. When planning capacity shrinks, development becomes harder and the city struggles to keep up with growth.

Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives — Manitoba has been producing alternative budgets since 1995. Weaving a Better Winnipeg: 2026 Alternative Municipal Budget, was written in collaboration with 24 topic experts and 17 civil society groups and was published last month. It proposes that Winnipeg rebuild its fiscal capacity instead of stretching inadequate revenues.

The alternative budget proposes $103.1 million in additional annual revenue through a combination of measures: $32 million from property taxes, $16.57 million from an impact fee on new development, $29.61 million from a commuter charge, $17.06 million from a parking-lot levy and $7.2 million by raising the business tax 10 per cent and retaining the small business tax credit.

The alternative budget proposes a total 7.5 per cent property-tax increase in 2026, compared with the city’s 3.5 per cent increase. On an average 2025 property-tax bill of $2,128, that would be about $159, or $13 a month. We propose a property tax refund for low-income homeowners, so they don’t have to pay the increase.

This municipal election, Winnipeg needs to talk about who pays, who benefits and what kind of city we are building.

Consider development. New suburban growth requires new roads, pipes and other infrastructure. The alternative budget proposes an impact fee tied specifically to the costs of servicing new development, while incentivizing reinvestment in established neighbourhoods.

Or consider commuters. Tens of thousands of people live just outside Winnipeg and pay much lower property taxes but use Winnipeg’s roads and other infrastructure every day. The alternative budget proposes a commuter charge that would ask people who regularly drive into the city to contribute to the infrastructure they use.

How Winnipeg raises revenue can shape how the city grows, how land is used and who pays to maintain public infrastructure.

Winnipeg has spent nearly three decades trying to prove that we can have a big-city economy and ambitions with low taxes. In 2026, we are seeing the results.

If we want better transit, functioning infrastructure, accessible recreation and libraries and the capacity to plan for a growing city, we need to pay for them.

In the lead-up to the Oct. 28 election, let’s talk about continuing to defer the costs of the city we have built and suffering the results, or making deliberate investments in the city we want.

Molly McCracken is the Manitoba director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Weaving a Better Winnipeg: 2026 Alternative Municipal Budget is available at policyalternatives.ca.