Today, the City approved the Mayor’s 2026 Budget, a budget that prioritizes ensuring that residents of Spadina-Fort York, and across Toronto, can thrive in our city. See more about key investments here.
Budget 2026 aims to make life more affordable.
We know that even with two years of course-correcting from previous administration's austerity that cut public services Torontonians rely on, families are still feeling the squeeze from the high cost of living. The 2026 Budget aims to help people and make key investments in City services on which residents rely.
My priority for residents of Ward 10 and across our City, is ensuring that in a City like ours, everyone has what they need to thrive. This means affordable housing, beautiful and vibrant parks and public spaces, reliable transit on safe roads, and real community safety.
On February 10, we passed a budget that makes investments to do this:
Housing
This Budget makes our City more affordable, safer and resilient. We are continuing to ensure that affordable housing is our top priority: the City of Toronto is remaining a leader in building more affordable units and ensuring healthy and safe homes for all. Funding includes:
Transit and Getting Around
This Budget ensures we can navigate our City safely and reliably: funding our TTC to improve wait times and reliability, improving safety and visibility on transit, and tackling congestion with seriousness. Funding includes:
Community Safety
Our investments in community safety are paying off, with violence down across key indicators and 911 calls are answered 75% faster than they were two years ago. And we know there’s still more to do to ensure everyone can feel safe in our communities across Ward 10 and our City. The 2026 budget continues important investment in multi-year front-line hiring plans that are helping keep people safe, including:
Feeding All Public School Children and Campers Citywide
We are feeding all kids in public schools, 330,000 Citywide, with a morning meal, and at camps camps to make life easier and more affordable for families. This investment is unprecedented.
In our Spadina-Fort York communities, this means that as of March, 5,140 campers at locations across our ward, at our community recreation centres at Canoe Landing, One Yonge, East Bayfront, Trinity, and at Toronto Island Park, will get free meals: this is a 441% increase from last year.
The expansion of the morning meal program in schools will be coming to Givins-Shaw Public School (this Spring) and Downtown Alternative School (this fall) to ensure all our public schools are covered: 330,000 students Citywide, as we continue tracking toward full implementation of a free lunch program in 2030.
Improving Our Parks and Public Spaces
We’re continuing to invest in our parks and public spaces, prioritizing improvements to David Crombie Park, Victoria Memorial Square, and Trinity-Bellwoods Park.
New parks are coming to Ward 10 and are funded in the 2026 Budget, at 34 Hanna, 801 Wellington St W, 229 Richmond Ave W, and 464-470 Queen St W.
We’re moving forward implementation of the Toronto Island Park Plan and delivering new electric ferries and infrastructure to make sure everyone can get to the Island.
Investing in seniors
Budget 2026 provides real help for seniors and their families with tasks like cleaning, cooking and financial management, so that seniors can stay in their homes and age in dignity. These programs currently help over 2,100 seniors live independently in their homes. The 2026 budget increases spending by $1.2 million on these programs to $7.6 million total, to help an additional 450 seniors each year. Funding includes:
Supporting small businesses
Find more information on the Budget here and share some of these wins!
Thank you to all those who attended the Ward 10 and 13 Joint Town Hall on Tuesday January 13th! If you shared feedback during that process, it is being reviewed by my team and shared with the Budget Committee. We heard about the importance of:
The Budget Committee was presented with an operating budget of $18.9 billion and a 2026-2035 capital budget and plan of $63.1 billion, the largest in the City’s history, to address aging infrastructure and invest in housing, transit and water in the long term.
In total, the combined residential property tax increase (0.7%)and City Building Fund levy (1.5%)represent an increase of approximately 2.2 per cent, or about $91.53 per year ($7.63 per month), based on the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation’s average current value assessment of a Toronto home ($692,140).
The 2026 Budget continues a multi-year approach and includes $788 million in efficiencies, reductions and offsets to manage ongoing financial pressures.
Property tax relief programs remain available for eligible low-income seniors and people with disabilities, supporting more than 10,500 households annually. More information is available on the City’s Tax and Utility Relief webpage. Small businesses will be eligible for a 20% tax reduction.
It’s the start of a new year and at City Hall that always means it’s time for our annual budget process. Budgets are about priorities and yesterday, City staff launched their proposed budget, which continues our work to make life more affordable.
We wrapped the final City Council session of 2025 this week, signaling the start of the holidays here around City Hall.
This week, I joined many holiday shoppers, Mayor Olivia Chow, and current and past organizers of the One of a Kind Show to celebrate the show’s 50th anniversary! For five decades, they’ve celebrated Canadian artisans and encouraged shopping local and Canadian.