Whine Season

Councillors Are Paid to Govern, Not Complain

The release of Hamilton’s proposed 2026 budget has triggered a familiar and increasingly unproductive ritual at City Hall: councillors expressing shock, disappointment, and indignation at cuts that are an inevitable consequence of the budget framework already declared.

Mayor Andrea Horwath has put forward a 2026 budget with a 4.25 per cent property tax increase—lower than the 5.5 per cent originally projected by staff. That reduction necessarily requires trade-offs. Yet much of the council response, as reported by The Hamilton Spectator, has focused less on proposing workable alternatives and more on lamenting process and outcomes after the fact.

This misses a fundamental point of municipal governance.

Councillors are not paid to react emotionally to difficult budgets. They are paid to do the hard work of governing within them.

Under Ontario’s strong-mayor legislation, the mayor is responsible for proposing the budget. Council’s role is clearly defined: review it, propose amendments, and build consensus where possible. That framework may be imperfect, but it is the legal reality councillors operate within. Complaining about that reality—rather than engaging it constructively—does nothing for residents who ultimately foot the bill.

Several councillors criticized the mayor for insufficient collaboration, arguing they learned of specific cuts only hours before a meeting. Ward 5 Councillor Matt Francis objected to the proposed decommissioning of the Stoney Creek Arena ice plant, calling it an ineffective savings of $161,000. Councillor Brad Clark said the process lacked resident input. Councillor Cameron Kroetsch described it as “disrespectful.”

These concerns may be sincerely held. But they are not substitutes for governance.

The mayor has been clear that her door was open throughout the process and that few councillors availed themselves of that opportunity. More importantly, councillors now have a defined 30-day window to do what they are elected and compensated to do: propose credible amendments that align with the declared tax target.

That means making choices, not simply pointing out that choices are hard.

If councillors believe the closure of Stoney Creek Arena is unacceptable, they must identify equivalent savings elsewhere—real savings, not rhetorical ones. If delaying the “HSR Next” transit redesign is shortsighted, they must propose how to fund it without increasing the tax burden. If ending blue box pickup for businesses is harmful, they must explain who pays instead.

This is the work.

Municipal budgets are not exercises in consensus-building alone. They are exercises in prioritization under constraint. Every dollar restored to one program must be removed from another, or collected from taxpayers already facing affordability pressures.

Too often, council debates drift into performative outrage, as though the budget appeared from nowhere and councillors were bystanders rather than participants in a multi-month fiscal cycle. Residents deserve better than that.

Hamilton taxpayers are not paying councillors to “decry” budgets. They are paying them to improve them—within the limits set, using the tools available, and with a clear understanding that leadership sometimes means owning difficult decisions rather than distancing oneself from them.

The 2026 budget process is not over. Councillors still have time to demonstrate seriousness, discipline, and respect for the role they were elected to perform. In short, they need to do better. 

The question is whether they will.

The Hamiltonian

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