The time has come to catch up on the 2026 budget process so far. Once again the mayor has re-written the budget (or had staff re-write it to be more accurate) in the name of affordability, but there remains little in the way of relief and there are still struggles between all things the City needs to do and all the other things that people want it to do. Presented here are the recaps of the budget presentation, and the budget delegation night…
Budget Meeting of City Council – October 29, 2025
Flashing back to the original budget presentation back at the end of October, Mayor Cam Guthrie began by saying that he looked at three options for this year’s budget: 1) a 2.5 per cent budget increase, a 3.5 per cent budget, and 3) the original recommendation approved in 2023. He said that the first option was going to have too big of a negative impact on the community, so he landed somewhere in the middle with 2.8 per cent, which included $300,000 for bicentennial plans, $60,000 for termite control, and $40,000 to add another free ride day on Transit for seniors.
Members of senior staff then walked council through the various considerations in the 2026 budget, including the complex outside issues like trade wars and global economic uncertainty. CAO Tara Baker said that while the primary focus of this budget was affordability, there are meaningful new investments too, and it also responds to slower growth, which has had a pervasive impact on the budget via lower DCs and building permit fees. At issue is that even though housing starts aren’t as strong as we’d like them to be, we still need to make sure that the housing enabling infrastructure is there when developers are ready to build again.
Shanna O’Dwyer, General Manager of Finance and City Treasurer, included in her comments concerns about the state of the City’s tax-supported reserves, and dissuaded council from using them any further for this budget, especially when it comes to paying for the sixth and final installment of the hospital levy. She also noted that 35 per cent of the levy increase is owed to the operating impacts from capital work including the opening of the South End Community Centre and the new main library.
Other changes include a transition to 24/7 paid parking lots, increasing public waste drop-off fees, and moving utility arrears to the tax bill. There’s also an end to snow removal from bike lanes and the park steward program (see more below), fewer cultural events like Movies in the Park and Doors Open, plus reducing active transportation priorities, sustainability, and youth subsidies in culture and recreation. Additions at the request of the mayor included a one-year extension to Welcoming Streets, making the youth and senior ride free on transit pilots permanent, support for the community led G2G trail connection between Woodlawn and Silvercreek, and $70,000 to support Guelph’s Community Call to Climate Action.
On the capital side, there’s downtown road construction, updates to stormwater in the Exhibition Park area, and a new bio solids facility upgrades coming up, plus construction is set to begin on the new transit fleet building. Work on York and Speedvale will continue, Orin Reid Park upgrades will also proceed in 2026, but the Beaumont Park will have to be delayed due to technical issues on site. In terms of the reserves, staff are starting to correct the misbalance between the water and waster reserves (there was not enough funding in one and too much in the other), and they had to change some assumptions in the forecast around the collection of Development Charges, which they hope will return to forecast levels by 2028.
After a break, council asked some questions and many of them proved a little too complicated and were referred for a deeper examination on the budget board. They also tested some of the assumptions made by staff and how they arrived at certain conclusions and what was being lost in the some of the cuts being proposed.
It ended with Guthrie saying that he encourages councillors to look at deferrals and substitutions too. With everyone from the federal government to the private sector to non-profits making cuts, then council should not be afraid to take a long, cold, and clinical look at the budget. “People are struggling, that’s all I’m saying,” Guthrie added.
Click here to see the complete recap of the meeting.
Budget Meeting of City Council – November 18, 2025
Over two dozen people came out to delegate about some aspect of the budget, but there were some common themes to the delegations.
There were representatives from the arts and culture sector asking for continued support through programs like the annual Artist-in-Residence appointment, and several stewards of local parks also appeared to ask for the continuation of the stewardship program, which helps volunteers keep parks clean and green and free of evasive species. Funding for both was restored before Mayor Cam Guthrie signed off on the final budget last week.
There were also many people who advocated for the continued winter maintenance of bike lanes and were concerned about the impact on traffic congestion and winter-time mobility and safety if the City stops plowing them. Along with that, several delegates expressed concern about delays in adding new bus service, especially the extension of the #98 Speedvale. A representative of the student government at Conestoga College especially noted the need for that route with a new imaging lab at Conestoga’s Speedvale campus that will be run by Guelph General Hospital.
Transit was also a concern for the Guelph Food Bank. Without new funding from the City to accelerate their new distribution model, executive director Carolyn McLeod-McCarthy noted that there’s still a conundrum with people having difficulty getting to the Crimea Street office to pick up their food since it’s not on a transit route. She floated the idea to council of sponsoring either free transit tickets twice a month for Food Bank clients, or sponsoring a special transit stop in front of the office.
Melissa Kwiatkowski from Guelph Community Health Centre and Kristen Kerr from Stonehenge Therapeutic also delegated asking for council to support the proposal for a daytime shelter downtown. Parrin Valli, the incoming executive director of Stepping Stone also signed up to say that both groups worked hard to make a plan that will fill a desperate need while also acknowledging the concerns of downtown business owners.
Lee Kapuscinski and Guelph General Hospital CEO Mark Walton were also on-hand to talk about the need for further funding of the Physician Recruiter Proposal, but during that delegation Councillor Christine Billings asked Walton if the last payment of the hospital levy could be separated between the 2026 and 2027 financial years. Walton was open to idea saying that it wouldn’t hurt the bottom line of the hospital since they’re on a different financial year from the City.
Perhaps the most contentious moment was when Martin Collier from Residents for a Safe Speedvale Avenue demanded a public inquiry into the Emma-to-Earl bridge “fiasco” and alleged that staff misrepresented the project. Mayor Guthrie took exception to that framing and then said that he looked forward to seeing everyone at the ribbon cutting. When Collier asked when that was exactly, Guthrie tersely dismissed him.
When it came back to council for commentary, they also had concerns about transit and the cuts to winter maintenance. Ward 6 Councillor Katherine Hauser asked if that included the painted bike lines on city streets, and DCAO Colleen Clack Bush noted that plows have to do multiple passes of every road and can’t guarantee they’ll clear all the way to the curb, so yes, that does include those specific bike lanes. Staff were also asked about the impact of lost revenue from automated speed enforcement cameras now that they’ve been turned off. GM of Finance Shanna O’Dwyer said that this was still being analyzed be her staff but there’s enough cash in the reserves to cover expenditures for 2026.
To wrap up the meeting, Guthrie advised that he has no intention of keeping people waiting if he intends to use his veto. Next Wednesday, if he does feel compelled to veto, he will use it there and then and give council a chance to override. He also said that the approval of the shared services budgets like police, the library and social services has been pushed back to February, and then he warned that between all the additional asks, and the increases in the other budgets, Guelph could be looking at an eight per cent levy increase for 2026 and that gives him concerns.
Click here to see the complete recap of the meeting.
Guelph Politico 