‘Tough conversations’: Taxpayer advocate says expected Winnipeg tax hike will be painful

The City of Winnipeg is set to release its preliminary budget for 2025 on Wednesday, and one item expected to be in the document is causing some concern among taxpayer advocates.

Franco Terrazzano of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation says a hike in property taxes — reportedly an increase of almost 6 per cent — is bad news for Winnipeggers who are already struggling to make ends meet.

“How many people in Winnipeg right now are having tough conversations with their spouse or their kids about having to cut back on Christmas?

“It’s time that we see all levels of government, including the city of Winnipeg, start to cut back.”

Terrazzano told 680 CJOB’s Connecting Winnipeg that the proposed hike will not only put more financial stress on the average Winnipegger, but it also flies in the face of a promise mayor Scott Gillingham made during his election campaign.

“The mayor is breaking his own 2022 election promise, when he promised to cap property tax increases at 3.5 per cent,” he said.

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“Any notion that the fat has been cut to the bone is nonsense. How about you start with leadership on your own political pay, before taking more and more money from Canadian taxpayers?”

Kate Kehler of the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg told Global News on Friday that the city needs to re-think how it collects property taxes.

“We need a system that will actually tax homes with higher property values at a higher rate and homes with a lower value with rebate, so they will pay less,” Kehler said.

Council finance chair Jeff Browaty said last week that Winnipeg has tough choices to make, and hiking property taxes isn’t a decision taken lightly.

“It’s the last thing I want to do right now but, on the flipside, Winnipeggers need their snow cleared, they want their boulevards cut, they want the water to flow when they turn on their tap or flush the toilet, they need their garbage picked up.

“We have gone through a lot of areas and we’ve looked for savings and I don’t think there’s much left at this point. I think at this point everything’s on the table, but it’s not what we want to do.”

0:41 Winnipeg police overtime costs

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