Here's how much your property taxes will increase next year across Essex County, Chatham-Kent and Sarnia
CBC
Municipal councils across Essex County and in Chatham-Kent and Sarnia have spent this year’s budget season trying to keep tax increases manageable while battling inflation and soaring policing costs and weighing the immediate cost of repairing aging infrastructure against the long-term cost of holding off.
Municipal tax levy increases approved so far range from 1.76 per cent in Lakeshore to 5.9 per cent in Kingsville — though the overall tax levy increase for some taxpayers will be lower by the time the municipal and county amounts are combined.
Tecumseh’s mayor will table that town’s budget on Jan. 13, according to the fall/winter edition of the Your Tecumseh newsletter.
Pelee Island expects to consider its budget in March, mayor Cathy Miller told CBC in a text message.
Windsor tabled its proposed budget on Dec. 29 with a zero per cent tax levy increase but increases to fees and cuts to departments.
Here’s a summary of what’s in some of this year’s budgets elsewhere around Essex County and beyond.
A petition earlier this year to fix a falling-apart road in rural Amherstburg highlighted the struggle municipalities face in keeping taxes low without letting infrastructure crumble.
Amherstburg staff had recommended in the town’s updated asset management plan that council add 2.5 per cent to the tax levy every year for the next 10 years in order to prevent infrastructure from falling further into disrepair.
The audit and finance committee went further in July, recommending an annual increase of 3.4 per cent.
Councilors voted during the budget process to accept the 2.5 per cent recommendation, but those increases won’t kick in until the 2027 budget.
Meanwhile, Amherstburg will spend just over $10 million maintaining infrastructure in 2026, including just over $1.9 million on its road network, around $1.1 million on bridges and culverts and around $1.2 million on buildings and facilities, according to a summary posted on the town's website by Mayor Michael Prue.
Homelessness has been top-of-mind for Chatham-Kent residents this year after slope stabilization work forced the relocation of the municipality's largest homeless encampment, leading to outrage from many of its new neighbours.
Chatham-Kent’s 4.63 per cent tax levy increase in 2026 includes 0.62 per cent related to “social issues,” which simply covers the rising cost of existing services to address homelessness, addiction and other issues in the community, budget committee Chair Coun. Brock McGregor told CBC.
Councilors are expecting reports from staff in the new year that will spell out options for housing all homeless individuals in the community and detail costs and procedures, he said.
Tucked inside Toronto’s leafy, quiet and private residential neighbourhoods are facades that tell the story of another time in the city’s urban planning history.
Ontario’s two main opposition parties will try to turn the page on what was a difficult year, with one rebuilding after an underwhelming leadership vote result and another searching for a new person to take the party helm.
This year, two things will happen to Canada's fiscal watchdog: Interim Parliamentary Budget Officer Jason Jacques will be replaced or made permanent, and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) will publish its review of the office.
As the era of bilateral bad blood between Canada and the U.S. drags on, some snowbirds are facing a choice this January: Go south to warmer climes, or boycott a country that has gone from friend to somewhat of a foe.
RCMP are warning people of slippery conditions on the Trans-Canada Highway after a transport truck slid off the road in the area of Clarenville, N.L.
Sidney Crosby is remembering fellow Nova Scotian Lowell MacDonald, a former NHLer who died Sunday, as an inspiration to his career.
Moncton artist Alan Spinney doesn't usually paint on a five-by-five inch canvas, but he and his wife have started doing that for a new mini-art gallery.
Residents of Pimicikamak Cree Nation are celebrating and relieved now that power and electricity are being restored to the community.
Two people are dead after an early-morning highway collision on New Year’s Day, the Saskatoon Fire Department said Thursday morning.
A small group of Haitian Canadians celebrated the island nation's Independence Day at a B.C. church on Thursday by serving soup that symbolizes freedom.
The crowd of spectators was much larger than the number of people lined up to go into the icy waters of the Charlottetown harbour for Thursday's polar bear dip.
In a park just outside city hall, along one of the main routes through Williams Lake, B.C., sits a memorial to Cheryl Folden, a woman described as a former drug dealer who died after a lifetime of struggling with addiction, abuse and homelessness in the province's Cariboo region.
A day after officials first asked Calgarians to reduce their water use in the wake of Tuesday’s catastrophic water main break, the city says it is not seeing any real reduction in usage.