Mayoral candidate Mark Sutcliffe unveiled an ambitious fiscal policy Wednesday that promises to limit property tax increases to between 2 and 2.5 per cent for at least two years, while protecting and investing in the city’s critical infrastructure.
Sutcliffe also said that, if elected, he would target the same range of tax increases for the subsequent years — albeit with a caveat.
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“With the current level of inflation and economic uncertainty, it’s impossible to predict the conditions that will drive the budget for 2024 and 2025,” Sutcliffe told reporters at a downtown campaign announcement.
“But I will commit, as I have since the very first day of this election campaign to keep taxes as low as possible.”
Sutcliffe, who is making his first run for office, said the city is in “an affordability crisis.”
“People are having to make tough choices, very tough choices so they can make their rent or their mortgage payments and still keep their kids in dance lessons or hockey,” he said. “… So they can buy enough groceries and still have money to put gas in their vehicles.”
His promise to hold tax increases below 2.5 per cent undercuts the promise of his main rival for the mayor’s chair, Catherine McKenney, who promises to hold tax increases to three per cent. McKenney plans to announce a more detailed fiscal plan on Thursday.
Whether either candidate can deliver what they promise is an open question.
Sutcliffe says he’ll launch a strategic review of city spending with the goal of finding $35 million to $60 million in “efficiencies” — equivalent to about one per cent of the city’s budget.
“There’s not been a proper, line by line review of city expenditures for almost 20 years,” he told reporters. “We’re going to find efficiencies and reapply them to the areas of investment that we’ve talked about.”
Although he says no one will lose their jobs, he says 100 positions will be eliminated by attrition of vacant and non-essential positions.
Funding for other promises — additional police officers and a police station in the ByWard Market, for example — will be paid in part with revenue from projected growth, he said.
Among Sutcliffe’s other promises:
Sutcliffe said his budget was “cautious, accurate and responsible” and accounts for expected cost increases due to inflation.
Cost increases from inflation and supply chain shortages are outside a mayor’s control, he said. “But what I can do is show respect for taxpayers experiencing the affordability crisis and to make sure the city does not add to the financial pressure that people are feeling.”
The municipal election is Oct. 24.
