2025 budget
Gatineau will invest more than $15M in 2025 on enhancing its services to the public
This money will finance a series of initiatives aimed at making Gatineau's vision on homelessness and social development a reality.
Support initiatives aimed at economic diversification, cultural liveliness and urban landscaping in the downtown.
Set up a dedicated envelope making it possible to respond quickly to one-time opportunities while supporting strategic investments in the former downtowns, in particular the urban cores of Vieux-Aylmer, Vieux-Gatineau and Vieux-Buckingham, in order to meet the local challenges and foster harmonious and sustainable development.
There will be an additional $1,900,000 to top up the $4,000,000 provided under the climate initiative.
Gatineau is stepping up its efforts in regard to fighting climate change through several strategic action plans. For 2025, $5.9M has been earmarked for a number of tangible and targeted initiatives, including, but not limited to, the following:
Total investments of $780M, including $273M in 2025.
The plan will be funded from different sources, including the existing dedicated fund, borrowing by-laws, subsidies, the lifecycle reserve, the land acquisition initiative, the tax on parking lots, and more.
This plan includes the pursuit of several major projects already underway and additional investments involving, in 2025:
Your Municipal Council has voted on the 2025 budget, which was prepared under unique circumstances. This Budget was prepared under unusual circumstances. Since the by-elections in June, our teams have been working in overdrive to hammer out the proposal we have before us. We owe a special thanks to our administration, the Executive Committee and the Municipal Council. Throughout this process, which we made as inclusive as possible, you displayed tremendous openness, respect and creativity.
Every year, the endeavour to balance expenditures and revenues becomes more difficult as the challenges multiply. A budget cannot solve everything, but it does highlight our priorities. December being the time to send a clear signal, the Council is announcing its two priorities as a) accelerating urgent investments and b) reducing pressure on property taxes.
What we are proposing is not merely a bunch of numbers. It's an electroshock, a purposive response to our major collective challenges. Municipalities are well positioned to act based on their intimate knowledge of the challenges, actors and territory. We have a responsibility to intervene, even in areas not traditionally within our jurisdiction, because we can see the most appropriate ways to respond to needs.
Thus, even though they lack the means, municipalities are best positioned to implement purposive solutions throughout their territory. Housing and homelessness, environment and mobility, infrastructures and core services: we don't act only to stem the hemorrhage. We bite off as much as we can chew in the effort to implement sustainable solutions in a collegial manner.
The 2025 Budget is pivotal for mobility. We know that when it comes to buses, bicycles and walking, Gatineau folks are on board when the offer meets the demand. With the Société de transport de l'Outaouais making a turnaround as ridership keeps getting closer to pre-pandemic levels, we are giving them an extra boost to increase the frequency and reliability of their routes starting in 2025. In addition, we are deploying extra snow plows to clear sidewalks and streets. And we are innovating with funds to open up temporary bike paths.
In terms of the environment, we're giving our ecological transition department a boost by doubling their resources. We will enhance our internal expertise and change our ways of doing things. Resilience and adaptation to climate change have to become second nature for our public works, infrastructure, recreation, culture and urban planning teams. It's a matter of sound financial management given that we have no idea when the next natural disaster will occur, but we know it's coming. We may as well be ready. It's also a matter of responsibility. When we have the capacity to act, we are duty-bound to do so. We owe it to future generations. In fact, that is why they have a chair at the table.
The humanitarian crisis that is homelessness keeps growing, and there is no denying one thing: in Gatineau, nobody has a handle on it. Thus, we are investing $5M to set up a dedicated municipal team that will manage makeshift camps, working with partners on adding dwellings and adapting our interventions. We will work particularly closely with UNIC, Gatineau's crisis intervention team. A police officer and a social worker on the same team has been shown to work. Its response is more focused, humane and on the frontlines.
Our investment is a first step in structuring our response. Tackling the problem head-on now is the most responsible thing to do. Waiting would cost us more. In so doing, we are demonstrating pro-active leadership in the field, together with the Government of Quebec, all in the interest of supporting its programs designed to address the new reality of homelessness.
It will come as no surprise to anyone that after years of under-funding, a colossal catch-up effort is called for when it comes to infrastructures.
Thus, we have earmarked $432M over the next five years for major work on our water treatment plants, maintenance and upgrades to our systems, and master plans for overflow and pumping stations. At the same time, we will keep improving our roads. We are topping up the regular envelope for 2025 with $23M, for a total of $188M over five years. Needless to say, when we repair roads, we take the opportunity to embellish them and make them more convivial. We are adding bike path and sidewalks to connect our network and introducing measures to make roads safer.
We will not be able to fix everything in 2025 given the current tax regime that prevents us from going as far as we would like. In order to do as much as possible without cutting services, we decided to diversify our revenues. The development charge, for instance, helps us fund projects like chemin Vanier and to pursue growth.
Investing in our infrastructures is important. Without that, we cannot keep growing our city, build the dwellings our communities sorely need, and create the kinds of living environments people want.
One of the challenges we don't talk about as much but that is still very much with us is the post-pandemic economic recovery. Online shopping and telework interfere with local shopping. Our businesses are losing their customers. What can we do to help them? We are investing $4.9M in the downtown and commercial strips such as rue Principale, avenue Buckingham and rue Notre-Dame, and we are about to make Place Laval permanent with an additional $3M.
These are economic measures that will benefit our businesses. These are also, and most of all, investments that will generate wealth from which everyone will benefit. We insist on the importance of creating inclusive gathering places, places for artistic expression, and abundant green spaces in which it is easy to get around. Investing in culture and infrastructures is also a form of economic development.
There is a delicate balance between limiting expenditures and responding to the challenges before us in a timely manner. Negotiating between needs, all of which are growing, is a never-ending endeavour.
Yet, this is the first time that we are seeing a significant decrease in the budget's property tax portion. That portion is falling from 84.2% to 80.2% of Gatineau's total revenues. The proposed 3.18% tax increase is equivalent to approximately $128 for a median priced property of $454,600.
We listened to the recommendations made by our departments, along with their explanations of the economic context. Several big cities have increased taxes by 5% to 7% over the past few years. In Gatineau, we have opted for a moderate and predictable increase.
Thus, we are sticking to the long-term financial plan while at the same time accelerating urgent investments through the introduction of new revenue diversification tools such as the development charge, which I mentioned earlier.
There is also the tax on parking lots, which follows up on a measure initiated by Council last year. For 2025, we have reached a modulated solution further to a serious and rigorous round of consultations and discussions with the city's economic actors.
Even if we maximize all the tools at our disposal, the issue of our outdated taxation system becomes unavoidable. Designed to fund services to properties, such as trash management, paving and snow clearing, the property tax is out of its depth when assigned to tackle climate change, economic development and the integration of newcomers.
No one responsibility is more important than another. They are all part of the range of services that contribute to quality of life in our neighbourhoods, and they should not be dismissed. The Government of Quebec must be made to understand the full scope of our responsibilities and convinced to supply us with whatever we need to fulfill the responsibilities we are entrusted with.
Municipal government is the only level called on to increase taxes simply to keep up with inflation. Property taxes do not take into account economic growth, unlike income taxes at other government levels. When your property's value increases, Gatineau does not become richer. The tax base of municipalities has shrunk to the point where experts such as Marie-Sophie Banville of Atelier Radah, are starting to refer to something along the lines of a tax anthill.
Municipalities have the necessary skills and expertise to become full partners of the provincial and federal governments. By aligning our respective strengths, we could multiply our collective potential. By working together, even the most ambitious national objectives would be within our reach.
I am extremely proud of the budget proposal before us tonight and of how much ground we covered to get here. Gatineau's finances are well managed, with tools that enable us to project over time, the debt level is low, and we are in good shape to tackle the challenges.
As has become the practice in Gatineau, everyone was able to follow the budget review week online. The public nature of this exercise raises the pressure on our officials and ourselves, but the process is a necessary and pertinent one. It is a way of ensuring transparency vis-à-vis reporters, interest groups and the population in general.
Several proposals emerged before, during and after the public review. We took the time to listen and to dissect everyone's suggestions, including those made by Council colleagues and residents, in equal measure. We drew on the collective expertise to improve the budget based on everyone's interests, not only those of people who think our way.
Everyone agrees that solutions must be provided for the housing crisis, efficient core services and quality recreational infrastructures if we want people to be proud to live in Gatineau. I am very grateful for the respectful and productive discussions we had as we hammered out a budget that reflects those priorities by proposing solutions rather than cuts.
Thank you. Good meeting!
Maude Marquis-Bissonnette
Mayor
Recognized for its quality of life, Gatineau is a city of 298,000 inhabitants. It is located on the north shore of the Ottawa River, and extends east and west of the Gatineau River.