2025 Budget: Investing in the Services & Infrastructure We Rely On

The 2025 City Budget was approved at a special meeting of City Council this week.

It includes investments to feed more children, freeze TTC fares while improving transit service, extend open hours for pools, libraries and other city services, build more homes, support tenants, including those facing illegal evictions and hiring more first responders to make Toronto safer.

This year's budget is comprised of an $18.8 billion operating budget and historic $59.6 billion in capital investments over 10 years.

Together, these two components deliver critical investments in the services Toronto-Danforth residents have told me they rely on.

It also helps fix the damage caused by years of under-investment and irresponsible financial decisions of previous administrations.

Highlights of the finalized budget include:

Making Life More Affordable

• Expands school food programs to reach 257,210 students during the 2024/25 school year – 21,500 more students than in 2023/24 – providing 48.4 million meals
• Provides daily nutritious snacks to 31,000 campers at 45 CampTO locations
• Allocates $1 million to the Rent Bank to assist up to 2,700 households in financial need
• Invests an additional $800,000 in eviction prevention programs and $712,800 for tenant support services
• Enforces a new bylaw to protect tenants from unfair evictions
• Launches a pilot program to provide 400 air conditioners to low-income and vulnerable residents in multi-family buildings  
• Waives development charges to unlock 8,000 affordable homes and accelerate the construction of 6,000 rental units

Keeping Toronto Moving 

• Freezes TTC fares while improving service across the transit network, adding about 500,000 more service hours
• Purchases 55 new subway cars to modernize Line 2 and improve service reliability
• Launches a pilot on 11 high-ridership bus routes to reduce “bus bunching” and make travel more efficient for riders
• Funding to deploy 100 traffic agents by the end of 2025 to help reduce congestion

Keeping People Safe 

• Adds 263 new front-line emergency services positions (fire, police and paramedics)
• Expands youth violence prevention programs
• Strengthens road safety initiatives

Enhancing Community Services 

• Extends Sunday service hours to all 100 Toronto Public Library branches
• Enhances cleaning at recreational facilities
• Expands outdoor pool hours by two hours daily
• Increases access to local arts, festivals and cultural events

City Council also voted to allocate an additional $3 million to a variety  of initiatives, including:  

• Support pruning and watering of young street trees
• Bolster volunteer engagement and stewardship programs focused on restoration and invasive species management in Toronto’s ravines
• Enhance drop-in services for people experiencing homelessness, including an extension of the Creating Health Plus program
• Support community programs that help seniors, youth, families, resident groups and local food security
• Help food security programs and food banks
• Support the city’s local procurement efforts

As part of this $3 million, I successfully secured funding to reinstate Eastview Neighbourhood Community Centre's Community Service Partnership, which served tenants at the Toronto Seniors Housing building at 80 Danforth.

I also secured capital funding to allow for sector-specific targeting of important groups such as workers in the arts, film, television and culture industries to be identified when applying for city rent-geared-to-income housing.

Historic Capital Investments

The capital budget and plan makes a historic investment of $59.6 billion, a $9.8 billion increase compared to the previous budget and plan.

It prioritizes state-of-good-repair investments, dedicating 54 percent ($32.4 billion) to maintain critical city infrastructure and funding to reduce approximately 160,725 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.

Ensuring Toronto's Financial Well-Being

The budget identifies over $680 million in savings and efficiencies.

It also contains revenue-raising measures, including increases of 5.4 percent to the residential property tax and 1.5 percent to the City Building Fund levy, which is dedicated to funding investments in transit and housing.

Property tax rates across southern Ontario (based on home value of $692K). Even after this year's increase, Toronto is still one of Ontario's lowest taxed municipalities. Source: Toronto Star.

Such increases are difficult but necessary to continue efforts to improve the city's financial well-being and fix the damage caused by previous administrations' decisions and years of underfunding from higher levels of government.

A Budget Shaped by You

I was pleased to see so many Torontonians get involved in the budget process this year.

Over 12,000 residents participated in the October 2024 consultations, telephone town halls and other events like my Budget Town Hall, ensuring the budget reflected their needs and priorities.

I was proud to stand at Council this week in support of the budget and Mayor Chow's work of building a more affordable, caring and safe Toronto.

Read the city's news release or visit the 2025 City Budget webpage for more on the budget.

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