Mark LeLiever Promises Property Tax Freeze Over Next Three Years

May 18th

Consistent with Mark’s focus to Get Toronto Moving both physically and economically, he promises a property tax freeze over the next three years so you can move your financial life forward by keeping more money in your pocket to pay for the things you and your family need.

“While the last property tax hike was kept at 2022’s inflation rate at 5.5%,” says Mark, “this was incredibly deceiving and did a real disservice to Torontonians. Prior to 2022, for the past seven years - from 2015 to 2021 - the yearly inflation rate averaged 1.75%. The municipal government tried to look like ‘the good guy’ by taking advantage of 2022’s skyrocketing inflation to keep the property tax hike in line with that. The problem is, the inflation rate in 2022 was the worst in more than four decades.”

On top of that, when you add in the 1.5% City Building Fund increase, 2023 saw a whopping 7% added to your tax bill. Mark believes now more than ever, this is not the time for more taxes. With his plan to reign in wasteful spending, combined with a precedent-setting revenue tool he will be implementing that will come at no cost to Torontonians, and an overhaul of the City’s procurement process that will save millions, he is confident Toronto’s ‘financial house’ will finally be headed in the right direction.

“It’s going to take us a few years to get there, but we will get there. And we won’t get our house in good financial order with more taxes over the next three years. We will do it creatively, and not on the taxpayers’ backs,” says Mark.

If inflation is the barometer we use to raise property taxes, then by freezing them over the next three years at least, pro-rated, this means the previous government’s recent 7% tax hike will work out to 2.33% annually over the next three years, which is certainly not perfect, but definitely brings things more in line with fairness and a “justifiable and reasonable” annual inflation rate.