The new Hamilton council is already proving to be different. The 1st big test will be the 2023 budget

This column is an opinion by Mohamad Bsat, a staff lawyer practising at the Hamilton Community Legal Clinic and founder of the running crew Air Up There. He was also one of CBC Hamilton's 2022 municipal election columnists.

A councillor's legacy can be defined in the decisions they make around the council table. As U.S. President Joe Biden said last year: "Don't tell me what you value. Show me your budget."

This term has nine new councillors and a new mayor looking to define their legacy. In the first few weeks alone, we've seen signs of change around transparency and priorities. On Dec. 6, for instance, council voted to keep a training session by the Integrity Commissioner open to the public, rather than move to a closed session.

This week, discussions around the upcoming city budget are back on the agenda. The 2023 budget will be the first big opportunity for this council to usher in change. 

Many of these councillors campaigned on a need for a fresh perspective and an opportunity to change the Hamilton of old; for many, this means prioritizing the housing crisis, community care, transparency within city hall, anti-oppression work, infrastructure, and the climate emergency.

We all know though that talk is cheap and money speaks. 

The pressure will be high to do things differently when the council discusses and makes decisions on topics like area rating, housing, policing or even cycling infrastructure.

Council required to balance the budget

Of the nine new councillors, at least two of them have a history of working with social justice groups in the city, the seven others will likely make their mark during this important decision-making process, which began with listening to public delegations in November and continues this month.

During the election campaign this fall, almost all of the nine new councillors, along with several incumbents, campaigned on building affordable housing for Hamilton. In contrast, a few of them also campaigned on either keeping taxes as is or lowering them. This is where things will get interesting. Most of the city's budget comes from property tax. The city needs money to address the climate crisis, the housing crisis, the infrastructure deficit, including cycling infrastructure, and the list goes on. Meanwhile, we may expect to receive a hit from the loss of development fees, eliminated as part of the province's More Homes Built Faster Act. 

This is the difficult part, the municipal budget is a zero-sum game; the city is not allowed to run a deficit by law. Hard decisions will have to be made over the next two months. 

Any decisions made by city councillors, particularly our freshly-elected members, will come with swift public scrutiny. It is part of the job. It will also likely come with commentary from the incumbents who have overseen a very status quo Hamilton over the past decade. There is no doubt, some councillors will be in deep opposition to any money siphoned from the police budget being poured into safe injection sites or shelters, but will they wilt from the pressure by others? 

New council members are expected to keep their campaign promises. The next few weeks are key for them to listen to their constituents, but more importantly, make the hard decisions that will put our city on a path toward achieving meaningful systemic change before the budget is approved at the end of March.

Housing investments should be top priority

The big question on every Hamiltonian's mind will be about the strategy council adopts to address the ongoing housing crisis. 

With nearly 6,000 households on the subsidized housing waitlist and, as of Nov. 1, 1,634 homeless folks, what will the council do in this budget to address the harsh reality of Hamilton being named the third most unaffordable city in North America? Initiatives like the Hamilton Alliance for Tiny Shelters or increasing funding for shelter services and drop-in centres are a stop-gap to the required systemic investments truly needed within our city.

The Ontario Living Wage Network recently recalculated the living wage in Hamilton — the minimum wage people should be earning to be able to live — to be $19.05. The average rent for a two-bedroom in Hamilton is a shocking $2,000-plus a month. The city desperately needs solutions now; people on social assistance are choosing death because housing solutions are impossible for their population. 

Recipients of the Ontario Disability Support Program particularly are feeling the weight of a system bearing down on them. Meanwhile, the city's rent ready program, which supported low-income renters during the pandemic, had a total budget of around $1.4 million and ended a year ago. 

This crisis will only grow worse unless council meets this moment head-on with transcendent policy — such as de-centring policing and enforcement as a response to encampments, as the Canadian Human Rights Commission's federal housing advocate recently suggested — and budget interventions, such as expanding the Rent Ready program, investing heavily into CityHousing Hamilton and increasing the paltry $6 million annual budget of the city enrichment fund. 

In her inauguration speech, Mayor Andrea Horwath spoke about creating housing, safety and inclusion, none of which can be achieved without significant financial investment in housing services and social care programs. 

All eyes are on council — especially the 10 newer faces — during these budget discussions. The previous council was very adept at maintaining the status quo to the detriment of Hamilton's citizens but with an infusion of new councillors, there is now an important opportunity for the city.