←LONDON DECIDES.
HOW TO VOTE
THE HARD FILES · AN OPTIONS BRIEF, NOT A PLAN

The Taxes & Budget File

3.4% in 2026 · 1 point ≈ $9M ≈ $38 on the average bill · what every tax promise actually costs

This page is a menu of options, not a plan. It walks through the levers a council can actually pull on taxes and spending — freezes, service reviews, user fees, development charges, debt, growth, the provincial money question, and the police budget. For each one it gives the strongest evidence for it, the strongest evidence against it, what it cost where it was tried, and the London-scale math, shown in full or honestly marked as not derivable. It recommends nothing.

One timing fact shapes everything here. The municipal election pushes the next budget season into early 2027, so the 2027 Annual Budget Update — the document that will revise the current 4.7% forecast — lands after the vote. Every candidate is campaigning against a forecast, not an adopted number.

Here is a ruler for every promise on this page. London's general levy is about $896 million, so one percentage point of tax increase is roughly $9 million a year in city revenue. On the city's own average-bill math, that same point is roughly $38 a year on the average home. Research was completed July 4, 2026, and every claim links to a source. The eight questions at the bottom go to every candidate in the race, equally, through the site's questionnaire, and their verbatim answers will appear here as they come in.

The honest numbers

Where London actually stands — every figure linked to its source.

Who writes the budget now

  • Since July 1, 2023, London runs on strong-mayor budget rules. The mayor proposes the budget, council has 30 days to amend it, the mayor has 10 days to veto amendments, and council can override a veto with a two-thirds majority. If nobody acts, the budget is "deemed adopted." Two consequences are worth a voter's attention: there is never a single up-or-down council vote on the whole budget, and the only recorded votes are on individual amendments. 2026 Annual Budget Update (Adopted), p. 23 ↗
  • The 2026 cycle, start to finish: Mayor Morgan released the update October 27, 2025 at 3.6%, down from a 6.4% forecast. Budget Committee trimmed it to 3.4% on November 20, council adopted the amendments November 26, and the mayor declined to veto December 1. getinvolved.london.ca/budget ↗
  • The biggest of the seven adopted amendments was the 0.2-point trim itself. It was paid for by redirecting $2.4 million in each of 2026 and 2027 — tax money freed up when the province confirmed cities won't carry development-charge exemptions. That is one-time relief, moved by Coun. Stevenson, passed 12–3 (Ferreira: "robbing Peter two years from now to pay Peter today"). Coun. Ferreira's amendment added free two-hour downtown and Old East Village parking at $784,000 a year from the levy. Coun. McAlister's added $250,000 for the Housing Stability Bank from a reserve fund, 14–0. The other four were smaller: a restored road-reconstruction cut ($114,000/yr), survey frequency ($28,000), a blue-box change reducing the levy $250,000/yr, and reserve-funded school-zone traffic calming. 2026 Annual Budget Update (Adopted), p. 39 ↗
  • Where the halving of the 2026 forecast came from matters, because candidates will claim it shows "efficiencies work." The pieces: about $20 million of departmental savings from reviews ($9.6 million permanent), $16–17 million of 2024 surplus spread across 2026–27 (one-time), $18 million of avoided debt-servicing costs, and $6.4 million a year freed by the province's DC-exemption confirmation. A big share of that is one-time money — which is why 2027 is still forecast at 4.7%. CBC ↗
  • What that means for the 2026 bill on the average home (assessed value $252,000): property tax up 3.4% (about $130), water up 2.2% (about $12), wastewater up 2.4% (about $18) — roughly $160 in total. 2026 Annual Budget Update (Adopted) ↗

What taxes did from 2024 to 2027

  • The city's budget tables carry two rows, and mixing them up produces most of the bad numbers in circulation. "Tax levy % increase" counts total levy dollars: 10.4% in 2024, 8.5% in 2025, 5.0% in 2026. "Tax levy % increase from rates" is what the average bill does: 8.7% in 2024, 7.3% in 2025, 3.4% in 2026, and a 4.7% forecast for 2027. The gap between the rows is assessment growth — new construction paying in. So 2024 was a 10.4% total levy increase, 8.7% of it from rates. It was not "8.7% later restated to 7.3%." The four-year average from rates is 6.0%. The dollar path on the average home: +$286, +$263, +$130, +$189 forecast. 2026 Annual Budget Update (Adopted), p. 6 ↗
  • What drove it: the police budget was the single biggest driver. The $672-million four-year police budget — 97 new officers among 189 positions, body-worn cameras, a training facility (now the London Emergency Services Campus at 3243 Manning Drive) — accounted for roughly 5 of the 8.7 points in 2024, and about 2 points of 2025's 7.3%. Global News ↗
  • The base versus the asks: at draft stage, staff said keeping existing services running needed only about 4.9% a year. Business cases — led by police modernization ($56.9M), the Climate Emergency Action Plan ($45.5M), and transit service hours ($41.9M) — pushed the total toward 9%. No official city point-by-point breakdown of the full 8.7% by driver has been published. CTV News (Dec. 2023) ↗
  • The Multi-Year Budget was deemed adopted March 1, 2024, when the mayor declined to veto council's amendments — the same mechanics as 2026, at much higher numbers. city release ↗
THE TAX-INCREASE ARC (FROM RATES) — TO SCALE
20248.7%
20257.3%
20263.4%
2027 (forecast)4.7%

These are the from-rates increases, the ones the average bill follows; 2024's total levy increase was 10.4% once assessment growth is counted in. 2026 Annual Budget Update (Adopted), p. 6 ↗

What a London household actually pays

  • The BMA Municipal Study is the standard Ontario comparison, and its 2025 edition holds three things at once. London's net levy per person is $1,743 against a study average of $1,971, which ranks low: the city spends below the big-city average per person. The average residential bill is $5,760 against a big-city average of $6,450, seventh-lowest of the 33 cities over 100,000 (peers range from Ottawa's $5,490 to Windsor's $6,837). And the levy per $100,000 of assessment is $1,730, which ranks high, because London's assessment base is small: average dwelling value $241,969 at frozen 2016 values. Any candidate quoting only one half of that pair is telling half the story, and BMA publishes no single combined "cheap or expensive" ranking. As a share of income, London property taxes are mid-pack: 3.8% of average household income. BMA Municipal Study 2025 (PDF) ↗
  • Underneath it all sits the assessment freeze. Ontario assessments for the 2026 tax year are still based on January 1, 2016 values — postponed every year since 2020, with no restart date announced. Council sets the levy first; assessments only divide it up. Under the freeze, a bill rises because of the levy increase, not because a home's market value rose. Reassessment, when it comes, will shuffle who pays what share of the levy but won't raise city revenue. That decision belongs to the province, and it is a live wildcard for the next term. MPAC ↗

Where the rest of the money comes from

  • The 2024–2027 operating revenue mix: property tax 63%, government grants and subsidies 24%, other municipal revenues 8%, user fees 5% (about $294 million in 2024). The 24% "grants" line is not free money. It is overwhelmingly cost-sharing for services London runs as the area's service manager — Ontario Works, child care and early years, and community housing, for both London and Middlesex County. 2026 Annual Budget Update (Adopted), p. 8 ↗
  • London receives $0 from the Ontario Municipal Partnership Fund in 2026 — it does not appear in the province's allocations table. The $600-million fund goes to 388 mostly small, northern, and rural municipalities. No-strings provincial aid to London is essentially nil. Ontario OMPF allocations ↗
  • Development charges on new construction inside the urban growth area in 2026: $50,564 for a single or semi-detached house (roads alone: $25,150), down to $22,364–$30,306 for apartments. Rates were indexed up 4.2% for 2026 under the construction-price index the DC Act prescribes. 2026 DC brochure (PDF) ↗
  • Assessment growth — new construction joining the tax roll — was 1.60% for 2026, worth about $20 million, most of it allocated by policy to serving the new development itself. The 20-year record runs 0.91% to 2.36%, averaging about 1.5% a year. Total weighted assessment is about $58.8 billion; the general levy about $896 million. That is where this page's one-point-equals-$9M ruler comes from. city staff report (Jan. 2026) ↗
  • Water and wastewater are funded by their own separate rates — they are not on the property-tax levy. The adopted 2026 update set water at +2.2% and wastewater at +2.4%, trimming the multi-year averages to 2.7% and 4.3%. 2026 Annual Budget Update (Adopted), pp. 4–5 ↗
WHERE EACH CITY DOLLAR COMES FROM — TO SCALE
Property tax63%
User fees24%
Senior grants8%
Other5%

Shares of city revenue. London gets $0 from the province's OMPF fund. 2026 Annual Budget Update (Adopted), p. 8 ↗

Debt and reserves, now and ahead

  • The audited position at December 31, 2024: net long-term debt of $193.6 million, down every year from $281.2 million in 2020 — $1,012 per household, roughly half tax-supported and half rate-supported. Debt servicing cost $45.8 million in 2024. Consolidated reserves and reserve funds: $2.138 billion, up from $1.406 billion in 2020. 2024 Consolidated Financial Statements (PDF) ↗
  • Moody's has held London at Aaa for 47-plus consecutive years, citing "low reliance on debt and high levels of cash and investments" — while flagging "upward pressure on debt levels from growth related capital projects." city release ↗
  • The underreported story: the approved plan grows debt roughly five-fold. The 2025 update's debt appendix forecasts issued debt rising from $195.2 million (2024) to about $509 million (2026), $665 million (2027), and $1.06 billion by 2033, driven by growth projects. Annual debt payments grow from $45 million toward roughly $153 million by 2031. Debt payments as a share of levy revenue go from 2.8% (2024) to 4.8% (2027) to 7.8% (2032). "Low debt" describes where the city is now, not where the approved plan takes it — both facts belong in front of voters. 2025 Annual Budget Update, Appendix D (PDF) ↗
  • The rules: Ontario's Annual Repayment Limit caps municipal debt payments at 25% of own-source revenue. With $45.8 million of payments against well over $1.5 billion in revenue, London operates far inside the ceiling — arithmetic on sourced figures, not a published city number. The city's own Debt Management Policy adds an internal cap and makes borrowing to replace worn-out assets (lifecycle renewal) a last resort. That is a structural link between the low-debt brand and the infrastructure gap below. Ontario — understanding municipal debt ↗

The repair backlog behind every promise

  • London's 2023 Corporate Asset Management Plan values the city's assets at $28.5 billion. It projects a ten-year (2022–2031) cumulative gap of $946.1 million just to maintain current service levels, and $1,378.1 million to reach proposed levels. About 11% of the portfolio is already rated poor or very poor. The plan's own words: the current-service gap "is considered a well managed gap," but unaddressed gap growth "has the potential to escalate beyond the City's ability to manage effectively." Corporate Asset Management Plan 2023 (PDF) ↗
  • Context: Ontario's Financial Accountability Office put the province-wide municipal backlog at $52.1 billion (2020), with roughly 45% of municipal assets not in a state of good repair. London's gap as a share of replacement value, about 3.3%, compares well to the implied provincial 10.8%. Why this number disciplines promises: every option below that cuts revenue or delays capital work either widens this gap or names another payer. It is the standing answer to "just spend less." FAO of Ontario ↗

Where the spending actually goes

  • London's 2024–2027 budget commits $5.7 billion in operating spending over four years. Property taxes cover 63% of it; the rest comes from government grants, user fees, and other revenue. The two biggest envelopes together take over half the operating budget. Worth knowing: much of the city's homelessness and housing money never touches the tax levy — it runs through the ~$37.6M donor-funded Fund for Change, provincial homelessness dollars, and federal transfers, which makes that spending hard to follow through normal budget lines. And the bill-versus-rate paradox is real: Londoners pay a below-average total bill compared to other big Ontario cities, but at an above-average rate, because home values here are comparatively low. Both are true at once.
WHERE EACH TAX DOLLAR GOES — TO SCALE
Housing, Social & Health Services33%
Protective Services (police and fire)20%

One colour on purpose: spending is not good or bad by category.

The option space

What cities try for this. Evidence for, evidence against, real costs, and who actually decides — for every option, identically. We don’t pick one. That’s the candidates’ job.

Freeze taxes, or hold the line

Cap the levy increase at or near zero, on purpose, for one or more years — the most common promise in any municipal race, and the one with the clearest arithmetic attached.

■ CITY DECIDES
THE EVIDENCE, THE COSTS, WHO DECIDES▾
EVIDENCE FOR
  • The affordability squeeze is real: property tax takes a larger share of income from low-income households, and it falls hardest on seniors whose homes gained value while their incomes didn't. Statistics Canada (PDF) ↗
  • London's bills rose fast recently — up $286 in 2024 and $263 in 2025 on the average home — against a bill still seventh-lowest among Ontario's 33 largest cities. The case for restraint and the case that restraint has room come from the same table. 2026 Annual Budget Update (Adopted), p. 6 ↗
EVIDENCE AGAINST / LIMITS
  • Freezes do not lower costs; they push them into the asset base and onto the next council's levy. Toronto is the best-documented Canadian case: after years CBC describes as effectively austerity budgets, its state-of-good-repair backlog hit $9.5 billion in 2023, projected to nearly double to $18.8 billion by 2032. CBC ↗
  • London has run this experiment. The Ontario Ombudsman's 2013 investigation records the 2010 campaign promise to freeze taxes, the "Fontana 8" voting 0% increases in 2011 and 2012, and the 2013 budget landing at 1.2%, not zero. The timeline is sourced — freezes then, a $946-million ten-year infrastructure gap and an 8.7% increase now. No document proves the causation, and this page claims only the timeline. Ontario Ombudsman ↗
WHAT IT COST ELSEWHERE
  • Toronto's deferred bill arrived with interest: in 2025 it added what it called a historic $6 billion to the repair budget just to "flatten the growth curve" of a backlog heading for $22.7 billion. CBC ↗
AT LONDON'S SCALE — ARITHMETIC SHOWN

Freezing 2027 at 0% instead of the 4.7% forecast gives up about $42 million of annual base revenue (4.7 points × ~$9M). That is roughly the city's entire 2024 debt-servicing bill ($45.8M), or about 40% of the asset plan's annual maintain-current-service gap ($100.7M). A freeze candidate owes voters the list of what fills that hole. city staff report (levy base) ↗

■ CITY DECIDESCouncil alone sets the levy. But the province controls assessment, the arbitration that sets police and fire costs, and the mandated cost-shared services — so a freeze is a city choice exercised over mostly non-city cost drivers.

Find savings through service reviews

Hire internal or outside reviewers to find savings without — the promise goes — cutting services; it is the most common answer to "what would you cut?" and the hardest one to check.

□ SHARED — CITY + PROVINCE
THE EVIDENCE, THE COSTS, WHO DECIDES▾
EVIDENCE FOR
  • Reviews do find real money, mostly the embedded, bit-by-bit kind: London's 2026 update credits internal reviews and right-sizing with about $20 million of departmental savings, $9.6 million of it permanent. CBC ↗
  • London already has a standing review body: the Strategic Opportunities Review Working Group, created May 2024, with authority to review programs and services. A candidate promising "a review" is promising something that already exists. CBC ↗
EVIDENCE AGAINST / LIMITS
  • The classic test is Toronto's 2011 KPMG Core Service Review, ordered by a mayor elected to "stop the gravy train." The Globe and Mail's verdict: one of the world's top consultancies "failed to identify a single spoonful of gravy." What KPMG offered instead was service cuts: mowing standards, snow standards, fluoridation. Globe and Mail ↗
  • Toronto's own committee documents put 96% of public-works-reporting services as core — mandatory or essential — leaving about 4% genuinely optional. The optional share of a city budget is small everywhere the question has been formally asked. City of Toronto (PDF) ↗
  • "Savings identified" and "savings banked" are different numbers, and no province-wide tally of Audit and Accountability Fund savings actually implemented exists in any loading source. London also has no unexamined budget: zero-based reviews already run inside the multi-year process, so the easy findings are already found. Open Council ↗
WHAT IT COST ELSEWHERE
  • Ontario's Audit and Accountability Fund paid for consultant reviews — Kitchener $686,000 for six, York Region $654,000 for three — with no published accounting of what was ultimately implemented. Toronto 2011 produced a menu of service cuts, not painless efficiencies. Open Council ↗
AT LONDON'S SCALE — ARITHMETIC SHOWN

The 2026 update's permanent internal savings ($9.6M) equal about 1.1 points of levy. Holding 2027 at, say, 2.7% instead of 4.7% through efficiencies alone means finding that scale of new, permanent savings again — after the reviews that already ran. Possible or not, it is a checkable claim: "we'll find efficiencies" without a named program and a dollar figure is not one. CBC ↗

□ SHARED — CITY + PROVINCECouncil orders reviews and votes on the results. The province mandates many of the services under review and controls the arbitration rules that wall off police and fire costs.

Charge users more, tax less

Recover more service cost from the people who use it — recreation, parking, permits, transit fares, waste — instead of from the levy. Council sets fees by by-law under s. 391 of the Municipal Act, and case law requires a fee to bear a reasonable nexus to the cost of the service, so fees legally cannot become a general substitute for taxes.

□ SHARED — CITY + PROVINCE
THE EVIDENCE, THE COSTS, WHO DECIDES▾
EVIDENCE FOR
  • The standard municipal-finance case: prices ration use and tie the cost to the person who benefits, and fees can be structured to balance benefits received against ability to pay. IMFG (Tassonyi & Kitchen) ↗
  • London already runs the model where it fits: recreation and sport services recover about 63% of cost, and a 2026 amendment moves budgeted recovery toward 65% — a sourced template for what one notch of user-pay looks like. 2026 Annual Budget Update (Adopted) ↗
EVIDENCE AGAINST / LIMITS
  • Fairness: user fees keep showing up as a top barrier to recreation for low-income households. Shifting cost from the levy to fees moves it onto the people already priced out. CES Institute (PDF) ↗
  • Volatility: fee revenue evaporates in a shock while property tax doesn't. Ontario municipal revenue fell $4.7 billion over 2020–21, led by transit fees (−$2.1B) and recreation and culture fees (−$0.8B). And scale: user fees are 5% of London's operating revenue, so even large percentage fee increases move the levy needle only modestly. FAO of Ontario ↗
WHAT IT COST ELSEWHERE
  • London Transit raised fares about 17% on January 1, 2024 — cash $3.00 to $3.50, monthly pass $95 to $112 — its first increase in years. That is what a meaningful fee move looks like in practice, and what it asks of riders. CBC ↗
AT LONDON'S SCALE — ARITHMETIC SHOWN

User fees total about $294 million, and each further point of recreation cost recovery is small against a $9-million levy point. A candidate proposing user-pay as a levy substitute owes voters the specific fee schedule and its dollar yield. The sourced 63%-to-65% recreation move is the honest unit of measure for one notch. 2026 Annual Budget Update (Adopted) ↗

□ SHARED — CITY + PROVINCECouncil sets fees by by-law; the province writes the enabling law and its limits; courts police the line between a lawful fee and an unlawful indirect tax.

Make new construction pay its way

Charge new development for the growth share of capital — roads, sewers, parks — so existing taxpayers don't fund it. London's 2026 charge on a new single-detached house is $50,564. The province sets the rules; the city calculates rates through a background study, with a new by-law targeted for January 1, 2028.

□ SHARED — CITY + PROVINCE
THE EVIDENCE, THE COSTS, WHO DECIDES▾
EVIDENCE FOR
  • Without DCs, growth infrastructure lands on the levy: roads alone are $25,150 of London's single-detached charge, and DC reserve funds are budgeted to carry a rising share of London's growth debt — $5.5 million in 2025 rising toward roughly $48 million by 2033. 2026 DC brochure (PDF) ↗
  • London's charge is comparatively moderate: about a third of Toronto's (roughly $141,000 as of September 2024), and London ranked among the most supply-friendly municipalities in the home-builders' association's own 2024 benchmarking. Storeys ↗
EVIDENCE AGAINST / LIMITS
  • Who really pays is genuinely contested. Sancton (C.D. Howe, market-liberal lean) argues buyers of new homes ultimately pay — that DCs add up to $135,000 to a new GTA house — and that they should be scrapped in favour of general taxation and borrowing. C.D. Howe Institute ↗
  • Moffatt's caution cuts both ways: "Development charges increase the cost of homes… They are a housing tax" — but savings from cutting them reach buyers only through supply, "not because builders are benevolent." In tight markets charges largely pass to buyers; in soft markets they sink into land values; no source settles it for London specifically. BNN Bloomberg ↗
  • The province keeps rewriting the deal mid-cycle: on March 31, 2026, Ottawa and the province announced DCs cut in half for three years, backed by $8.8 billion over ten years, with municipalities "expected to help pay." Mayor Morgan: supportive "if it works as intended… that reduction has to be passed on to those purchasing the home." Whatever a candidate says about DCs, this deal rewrites the arithmetic mid-term. CBC ↗
WHAT IT COST ELSEWHERE
  • The Bill 23 ledger is the costed record of a provincial DC cut: London staff first estimated a potential $97-million hole over five years; the April 2023 revision put it at $25–100 million; the actual reserve drawdown came to about $32 million in 2023–24. CBC ↗
  • The partial walk-backs: Bill 185 (June 2024) repealed the mandatory five-year DC phase-in, and in fall 2025 the province confirmed cities won't fund the statutory exemptions — erasing a $10-million hole in London's 2026 budget and directly enabling the 6.4%-to-3.4% path. Osler LLP ↗
AT LONDON'S SCALE — NOT DERIVABLE FROM PUBLIC DATA

The growth share of the 2024–2027 tax-supported capital plan is $709.7 million of $1,704.1 million. How much of the halved-DC revenue the new federal-provincial backstop actually replaces for London cannot be worked out from any published source yet — which makes it exactly the costed question to put to candidates, rather than a number this page can print. 2025 Annual Budget Update (PDF) ↗

□ SHARED — CITY + PROVINCECouncil sets rates within the DC Act; the province sets the ceiling, exemptions, and indexing — and has rewritten the deal mid-cycle three times (Bill 23 down, Bill 185 partway back, the 2026 halving down again).

Borrow more to build

Borrow for long-lived infrastructure instead of paying cash from taxes, inside the provincial Annual Repayment Limit and the city's own policy, under which borrowing to replace worn-out assets is currently a last resort.

■ CITY DECIDES
THE EVIDENCE, THE COSTS, WHO DECIDES▾
EVIDENCE FOR
  • Fairness across generations — future users of a 50-year asset help pay for it — is the province's own stated rationale, and London's headroom is unusually large: debt per household halved since 2020, with debt payments at 2.8% of the levy against a 25% provincial ceiling. Ontario — understanding municipal debt ↗
  • IMFG's assessment of the sector: "Strict rules on borrowing, sometimes self-imposed, have left municipalities with considerable unrealized borrowing capacity." The rate environment is moderate: the Bank of Canada's overnight rate stood at 2.25% as of June 10, 2026, and London's 2024 issues priced at 4.427% and 3.44%. IMFG (PDF) ↗
EVIDENCE AGAINST / LIMITS
  • Debt payments crowd out services: London's approved forecast has total annual payments growing from $45 million toward roughly $153 million by 2031 — money unavailable for services — with the levy share rising from 2.8% to 7.8% by 2032, and 10.7% of the wastewater rate base by 2033. 2025 Annual Budget Update, Appendix D (PDF) ↗
  • Moody's names low debt as a pillar of the 47-year Aaa rating while flagging upward pressure from growth projects. The peer cautionary tale is Sudbury: a run-up toward roughly $600 million — a projected $3,333 per person by 2027 — and the resident backlash that followed (Fraser Institute commentary; market-liberal lean noted). Fraser Institute ↗
WHAT IT COST ELSEWHERE
  • The 2023 Ontario major-municipality range ran from Kingston at $3,284 of debt per person to Markham at $20, averaging $913 — London among the substantial decliners. Canada's municipal bond market itself is thin: about $53 billion outstanding against roughly C$6 trillion in the United States. Policy Options ↗
AT LONDON'S SCALE — ARITHMETIC SHOWN

$100 million of new ten-year debt at London's 2024 issue rate (4.427%) means roughly $12–13 million a year in payments, about 1.4 points of levy — against, say, the asset plan's $100.7-million-a-year maintain-current-service gap. And the "borrow more?" debate is partly beside the point: the approved plan already quintuples issued debt by 2033. The live question is whether a candidate would go faster, slower, or reshuffle what's already planned. 2025 Annual Budget Update, Appendix D (PDF) ↗

■ CITY DECIDESCouncil authorizes borrowing under its own policy, inside provincial rules — the Annual Repayment Limit, with tribunal approval required beyond it.

Grow the tax base, not the rate

Add new assessment — industrial plants, infill, denser building — so the levy grows without rate increases. The sourced reality check: London's weighted assessment growth has averaged about 1.5% a year over 20 years and has never topped 2.36%.

□ SHARED — CITY + PROVINCE
THE EVIDENCE, THE COSTS, WHO DECIDES▾
EVIDENCE FOR
  • It funds real money: 2026's 1.60% of growth was worth about $20 million, and the mix is shifting toward higher-yield forms — multi-residential contributed 0.50 of the 1.60 points (up 43.67%), with residential at 0.64 and commercial at 0.49. city staff report (Jan. 2026) ↗
  • The strongest Canadian evidence on what kind of growth pays: Ottawa's city-commissioned analysis found new low-density greenfield homes cost the city a net $465 per person per year beyond the taxes and fees they generate, while high-density infill produces a net surplus of $606 per person per year. Treat it as indicative — single-city, methodology contested by the development industry. CBC ↗
EVIDENCE AGAINST / LIMITS
  • Growth is largely eaten up serving the growth itself: the ~$20 million is allocated by policy mostly to extending services to new development. The record shows assessment growth softening levy increases by 1.2–1.7 points a year — nothing in it shows growth replacing them. city staff report (Jan. 2026) ↗
  • The industrial fine print: London's Industrial Lands CIP offers a DC grant of up to 100% and a ten-year tax-increment grant of up to 100% — so marquee industrial wins can contribute little net levy in their first decade. Industrial actually contributed negatively (−0.02 points) to the 2026 roll. The recent story is apartments and commercial, not factories. Industrial Lands CIP (PDF) ↗
  • Boundary honesty: the VW/PowerCo gigafactory is in St. Thomas and the Amazon fulfillment centre is at Talbotville — neither adds a dollar to London's assessment roll. The MPAC freeze also mutes every strategy in this bucket: new construction enters the roll at 2016-equivalent values. Infrastructure Ontario ↗
WHAT IT COST ELSEWHERE
  • Ottawa's fiscal-impact-by-growth-form numbers ($465 net cost per person for greenfield; $606 net surplus for infill) are the only costed Canadian benchmark located; no London-specific equivalent has been published. CBC ↗
AT LONDON'S SCALE — ARITHMETIC SHOWN

The 20-year record is the arithmetic: growth of 0.91%–2.36% a year, worth about $20 million in the best recent year, mostly pre-committed to serving new development. "Growth" by itself is not a revenue strategy; the mix of growth is the claim to test. A candidate promising growth-funded tax relief owes voters a number that has never appeared in two decades of the city's own tables. city staff report (Jan. 2026) ↗

□ SHARED — CITY + PROVINCECity: zoning, servicing order, industrial land, CIP incentives. Province: the Assessment Act, MPAC, the reassessment freeze, and tax ratios.

The province-shaped hole

A built-in feature of Ontario municipal finance, and the option candidates reach for when the arithmetic gets hard. The 1998 realignment downloaded social assistance administration, public health shares, land ambulance, transit, and social housing (0% to 100% municipal) onto property taxes; the 2008 review uploaded some of it back, worth a net $1.5 billion a year to municipalities by 2018.

□ PROVINCE DECIDES
THE EVIDENCE, THE COSTS, WHO DECIDES▾
EVIDENCE FOR
  • The structural claim is documented, not invented: what stayed municipal after the uploads — social housing, half of land ambulance, a quarter of public health — is what AMO means by "municipalities in Ontario are responsible for services that are typically provincial jurisdiction in other provinces." IMFG Paper No. 17 (PDF) ↗
  • The current ask, exactly: AMO's Social and Economic Prosperity Review says municipal funding has outpaced provincial contributions by almost $4 billion (2022) and asks for a joint fiscal review, the first since 2008. That is the municipal lobby's side of the ledger — an advocacy figure, labelled as one. London's council has passed the supporting resolution. And London carries service-manager duty for Ontario Works, child care, and community housing across London and Middlesex County while receiving $0 in unconditional OMPF aid. AMO backgrounder (PDF) ↗
EVIDENCE AGAINST / LIMITS
  • The province's side is also sourced: a $1.2-billion Building Faster Fund tied to housing targets, the OMPF raised to $600 million (tilted to equalization — London's share is zero), the Homelessness Prevention Program up about $202 million a year, and public health cost-sharing restored to 75/25. AMO calls these piecemeal; the province calls them investments. Both characterizations belong in front of voters. AMO news release ↗
  • A candidate who answers a budget question with "the province should pay" is describing a lobbying strategy, not a budget line. The strategy is legitimate — and it has not produced a comprehensive fiscal review since 2008. The follow-up that matters to voters is the fallback: what happens to the levy when the province says no. AMO — SEPR hub ↗
WHAT IT COST ELSEWHERE
  • The 2008 precedent shows what an upload is worth when it happens: Ontario Works and ODSP benefits, seniors' drug benefits, and court security phased back to the province over 2008–2018, a net $1.5 billion a year to municipalities by the end. IMFG Paper No. 17 (PDF) ↗
AT LONDON'S SCALE — NOT DERIVABLE FROM PUBLIC DATA

Not derivable. The ~$4-billion gap is AMO's province-wide advocacy figure; no published source breaks out London's share, and this page will not invent one. What a councillor can actually do is sourced and short: vote the municipal share within mandated minimums, pass advocacy resolutions (done — London is on AMO's list), and lobby. The checkable part of any candidate's answer is the fallback plan. AMO — resolutions list ↗

□ PROVINCE DECIDESThe framework is the province's. Council votes only the leftover municipal share — much of it legally required service delivery — and how hard it lobbies.

The police budget, explained

Included because candidates promise things council cannot do here, in both directions. Under the Community Safety and Policing Act, 2019 (in force April 1, 2024), the police board prepares the estimates and council sets an overall budget — but "the municipality does not have the authority to approve or disapprove specific items in the estimates." Council sets only the bottom-line total; it cannot go line by line.

□ SHARED — CITY + PROVINCE
THE EVIDENCE, THE COSTS, WHO DECIDES▾
EVIDENCE FOR
  • Council's power over the total is real: the Act says council "is not bound to adopt the estimates," and pushback can work through negotiation. In Peterborough (2025), council pushed back and the board came back at 7.8% instead of 8.8%, with the chief now presenting bronze/silver/gold budget options, bronze being the legal minimum. A candidate implying the police budget is untouchable is wrong on the record. Open Council ↗
EVIDENCE AGAINST / LIMITS
  • A candidate promising to "cut the police budget line by line" or "defund by $X from unit Y" is promising a power council does not have. Line items belong to the board, and an under-funded board can take council to conciliation or binding arbitration on the "adequate and effective policing" standard. Ontario — CSPA, 2019 ↗
  • The one adjudicated precedent favoured the board: Guelph, 1999 — the board sought $252,000 more than council would fund, and the commission ordered council to pay $187,750 of it. Everything else has been leverage: Hamilton (2011) council sent back a 5% increase, the board threatened referral, and council backed down. Canadian Dimension ↗
  • The wage engine runs on provincial rails either way: policing is an essential service with no right to strike, so disputes go to mandatory interest arbitration. Salaries and benefits are about 77% of Ontario police spending, and Ontario per-person police spending runs $362 — $34 above the national average. This is why efficiency reviews keep finding the protective-services envelope, about 20% of London's operating budget, the least movable line in the book. Open Council ↗
WHAT IT COST ELSEWHERE
  • Guelph 1999: the board substantially won at adjudication ($187,750 of $252,000). Hamilton 2011: council backed down under threat of referral. Peterborough 2025: negotiation produced 7.8% instead of 8.8%. That is the entire adjudicated-and-leverage record located for Ontario. Canadian Dimension ↗
AT LONDON'S SCALE — ARITHMETIC SHOWN

The $672-million four-year police budget accounted for roughly 5 of the 8.7 points in 2024 and about 2 points of 2025's 7.3% — press-derived figures; no official city breakdown exists. Trim attempts failed: an ~$867,000 equipment cut lost 7–8 in 2024, and a $1.6-million-a-year attempt failed 4–11 in 2025. Note the overlap in who runs what: the seven-member police board includes the mayor and two sitting councillors. Global News ↗

□ SHARED — CITY + PROVINCEShared by design: council votes the total only, the board controls line items, the provincial commission (OPAAC) decides disputes, and the province wrote the statute.

What a costed answer looks like

Any candidate can say this issue matters. These questions ask for numbers and mechanisms — every candidate gets them, equally.

  1. One point of tax increase is about $9M in city revenue, or $38 on the average bill, and 2027 is forecast at 4.7%. If you promise less, name the programs cut, fees raised, or reserves drawn, with dollar figures.
  2. London's reviews already banked about $20M in savings, and Toronto's famous 2011 consultant review found 96% of services mandatory or essential. What specific savings remain unfound, in which service area, and how many dollars?
  3. Under provincial law, council sets only the police budget's bottom-line total, and the current four-year budget is $672M. What total will you vote for next time, and will you go to arbitration if the board refuses it?
  4. The city's own asset plan shows a $946M ten-year gap just to maintain current services. Do you close it, with what revenue, or accept declining condition, in which assets?
  5. The approved plan already grows city debt from about $195M toward $1B by 2033. Would you borrow faster, slower, or the same, and what does your answer do to taxes and the repair backlog?
  6. The province halved development charges for three years with only a partial backstop for cities. If London's revenue isn't fully replaced, which do you choose, and at what cost: backfill from taxes, cut the $710M growth plan, or slow approvals?
  7. London has already asked the province to take back about $4B a year in downloaded costs, and the answer since 2008 has been no. When it's no again, what is your budget plan, in dollars, for housing, ambulance, and public health?
  8. The 3.4% increase in 2026 leaned on one-time money that runs out in 2028. What is your base-budget plan for the year that money is gone?

What your ward is wrestling with

This file lands differently on every street.Jump straight to your ward’s own issue list:

DON’T KNOW YOUR WARD? FIND IT BY ADDRESS →
WARD 1WARD 2WARD 3WARD 4WARD 5WARD 6WARD 7WARD 8WARD 9WARD 10WARD 11WARD 12WARD 13WARD 14
CLAIMS WE COULDN’T VERIFY — SO THEY’RE NOT ON THIS PAGE ▾

These circulate in coverage of this issue but could not be traced to a source that loads and says what’s claimed. We’d rather show you the gap than publish the number.

  • Any city document restating 2024's 8.7% as "7.3% after assessment growth" — not found; the city's two-row table (10.4% total levy / 8.7% from rates) is the sourced framing, and 7.3% is 2025's figure.
  • A "Windsor 2020" or "Thunder Bay" police-budget arbitration precedent — none exists in any loading source; the only adjudicated case located is Guelph, 1999.
  • An official city percentage-point decomposition of the 2024 increase by driver — police at ~5 points is press-sourced; no city points table exists for the rest.
  • London's current-year Canada Community-Building Fund allocation — the last verified per-municipality figure is 2021 ($24.3M base).
  • A primary-source dollar figure for 2026 assessment-growth revenue — the $20M rests on a CTV headline; the underlying report links did not load.
  • A single composite BMA "relative taxes" ranking for London — BMA ranks per table only; no composite exists and this page will not invent one.
  • London's Ministry-calculated Annual Repayment Limit dollar headroom — "far inside the ceiling" stays labelled as arithmetic, not a published number.
  • The dollar value of the Treasurer's internal debt cap — the policy confirms it exists; no figure is published.
  • "48th" or "49th consecutive year" of the Aaa rating as an official phrase — only 2023's "47 consecutive years" is a city claim.
  • The literal slogan "zero means zero" attributed to Fontana — the freeze promise and the 0% votes are Ombudsman-sourced; the slogan is not.
  • Any document directly attributing London's infrastructure gap to the 2011–2012 tax freezes — the chronology is sourced; the causation is not.
  • The Toronto KPMG core-service review's total potential-savings dollar figure.
  • A province-wide tally of Audit and Accountability Fund savings identified versus actually implemented — only consultant marketing exists.
  • Whether London's current DC rates sit at the calculated legal maximum from its background study.
  • The net levy contribution of the Maple Leaf Foods plant — or the industrial class generally — and any quantified London fiscal spillover from VW/PowerCo (St. Thomas) or Amazon (Talbotville).