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Condo and office towers are seen in downtown Vancouver, on Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl DyckDARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
With less than a year to go before a civic election, Vancouver’s governing party has passed what it calls a zero-per-cent tax increase.
But that’s going to mean cutting millions from arts and culture programming, planning, parks and more, while giving an extra $46-million to police and $12-million for fire protection.
The budget triggered an unusual level of opposition, with 630 people registered to speak, almost all of them expressing dismay about the plan.
The city is cutting $120-million overall to end up with a $2.39-billion budget, something Mayor Ken Sim and his councillors said marked a reset in how Vancouver is run, with a new focus on core services and affordability for taxpayers.
The budget is also in stark contrast to the fiscal plans passed by the mayor and his ABC party in the previous three years, with increases of 10.7 per cent, 2.28 per cent and 3.9 per cent, respectively.
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Speakers and the city’s four opposition councillors called the latest budget a political stunt, aimed at trying to rehabilitate ABC’s image before next year’s election.
“This is not financial stewardship. This is financial sabotage,” said Ben Direen, a B.C. tour operator who was 487 on the speakers’ list.
Speaker Ruofang Wang called the zero budget a “cruel and thoughtless slogan.”
And Moh Hosseini said the budget made him worried that the services he has been so grateful for since arriving in Canada from Iran will be eroded.
Several representatives from arts organizations, including Bard on the Beach, Ballet BC and the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, expressed concern about the $6-million cut to the arts and culture department.
ABC councillors insisted that the amount for grants to organizations won’t be affected.
“We were voted into office because people didn’t want the status quo,” said Mr. Sim, defending his budget after the vote.
He said a dramatic decrease was important, rather than an increase matched to the rate of inflation, because of the big impact that U.S. President Donald Trump has had on the country’s economy.
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Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim speaks during an event in Vancouver on June 27, 2025.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
In fact, it will not be a zero-per-cent increase, despite the slogan, because residents will still see an additional one-per-cent hike to contribute to infrastructure costs.
And utility fees, listed as a separate item but one that used to be part of the general budget, will be increased by another $10-million, which is the equivalent of almost another one-per-cent increase.
The biggest beneficiaries from a frozen budget will be businesses, where even small increases can mean tens of thousands more in taxes because of the high value of their properties.
Independent Councillor Rebecca Bligh, a former ABC party member who is now planning to run against Mr. Sim for mayor, noted that the budget means $47-million in increased fees throughout the city that the public will end up paying.
That won’t make anything more affordable, she said.
Ms. Bligh added that the public won’t even find out what the impacts will be until months later because the budget plan voted on was so vague.
“Passing a budget with this many blind spots is flat-out irresponsible,” she said.
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In spite of three days of hearing from speakers who said the ABC council members should be ashamed of their plan to make such drastic cuts, the seven ABC members stuck to the party message, making only small amendments at the end.
One, from ABC Councillor Mike Klassen, was to provide an extra $800,000 for parks and rec so community-centre fees won’t have to be raised.
ABC Councillor Lisa Dominato had an amendment approved to put money into fixing the 30 baby-change tables in city facilities that have been vandalized repeatedly, rather than just eliminating them – a proposed cut that had sparked much criticism and a protest at city hall.
But other reductions remained in place after the final vote.
Among the departments that interact with the public, planning and sustainability will lose the most proportionately, 14 per cent from its $40-million budget.
There are also reductions in departments such as “corporate support,” technology management, real estate and facilities management (which oversees maintenance of major park facilities), and finance and supply-chain management.
Vancouver’s budget is not wildly out of line compared with other Canadian cities. Its spending, which is higher per person than nearby suburbs because it polices and services a busy urban centre used by many in the region, works out to $3,064 a person for the city’s 780,000 residents.
Toronto’s 2025 budget was $18.8-billion, which works out to $5,697 for each of the city’s 3.3 million residents. (Toronto’s budget includes costs for social housing.)
Montreal’s almost two million residents paid $3,660 a person to cover the $7.28-billion budget in 2025. And Calgary is looking at a $4.6-billion budget for 2026, which works out to $2,875 a person among the 1.6-million residents.
