The Great Budget Rebellion of ‘26

The 2026 municipal budgeting process has not been going well.

Part of the reason could be that the new budgeting requirements that the province imposed on the municipalities it granted “strong mayor powers” (of which Hamilton is one) are deeply confusing at the best of times.

A bit of humourously self-deprecating commentary from Ward 6 Councillor Tom Jackson on January 23 was a great encapsulation of how muddled the process is thanks to the Ford government’s changes. Seeking clarification from the city clerk, Jackson said: “You know, I do my darnedest to listen carefully to instructions from staff…could you please, for this simpleton from Ward 6, can you clarify please…I thought today was the last day to submit potential amendments [to the budget] for staff to work on…I say this very respectfully, I’m very confused.” Jackson, as those with even a passing knowledge of our local politics will know, has served on council for 38 years. If a man with more legislative experience under his belt than I’ve had years on this planet is confused about the process, something’s not right.

Jackson was seeking clarity about timelines. For this year’s budget process, the timeline has looked something like this:

• Tuesday, October 7, 2025: Mayor Andrea Horwath issued her “Budget Directive”. These “directives” are part of the new budget process imposed by the province which puts the mayor in charge of “setting the agenda” for the budget. In her directive, she asked staff to “hold the line” and cap residential property tax increases at 4.25%.

• Friday, December 12, 2025: City staff released the preliminary draft of the proposed tax-supported budget.

  • _{Municipal 101 side note - municipal budgets are divided into rate-supported (meaning big things you pay for separately - really just municipal water services) and tax-supported (meaning everything else funded by property taxes paid directly by homeowners and indirectly through landlords by tenants).}

• Tuesday, January 20, 2026: The Mayor released the final draft of the proposed tax-supported budget. Councillors did not receive notice that the draft was being released. In response to questions from local journalist Joey Coleman, Mayor Horwath said she did not meet with councillors when putting together the budget and could not indicate what feedback from the public was included in her final draft.

• Friday, January 23, 2026: Council first met to discuss the proposed tax-supported budget.

Let’s pause there, as things really kicked off that Friday. And, right off the bat, there was tension.

At around 11:00 AM on January 23rd, the budget discussions began in council chambers. There were a couple of agenda items on the budget, but the most important were 7.2 and 7.3. The former was a memo from the mayor summarizing what is, in essence, her budget and the latter was an overview of the budget itself.

Now, I say her budget because, thanks to strong mayor powers, all the real budget power rests with the mayor. The mayor directs the budget, the mayor sets the agenda for the budget, and the mayor, in the end, owns the budget.

The second speaker to those budget motions on the agenda that day was Ward 5 Councillor Matt Francis, who opened with a question about when amendments could be proposed. This was because, in his words “last night I get a call…or yesterday [Thursday, January 22], I get a call from the chair of [the Hamilton Conservation Authority (HCA) - meaning Ward 9 Councillor Brad Clark] informing me that Wild Waterworks is going to be presented today to be removed from this budget…this isn’t a collaborative approach.”

Francis told council that the HCA chair told him about a line in the budget that suggested, as a way to ensure cost savings, the popular beachfront waterpark in Francis’s ward would be closed. This claim was also circulated on social media by a right-wing Ward 3 council candidate around the same time Francis noted getting the call from Clark. The post from the candidate, made around 7:00 PM on January 22, received around 1000 views on X/Twitter. The possible closure of Wild Waterworks had not been discussed in the media prior to this, despite the candidate claiming they “heard reports” about the waterpark’s closure. At this point, it remains unclear where the candidate “heard reports” from prior to Francis publicly noting it at council. Some council candidates are doing their homework early by combing through the budget, but I’ve looked through all those documents and haven’t found reference to that mistakenly-added cut.

Francis raising this point kicked off a momentary panic amongst those in the community who valued the aging waterpark. But staff quickly clarified that reports of Wild Waterworks’ death had been greatly exaggerated. An administrative error resulted in the park’s inclusion on a list of proposed cuts and staff informed council that “the proposed Wild Waterworks cut was not shared with the mayor because it was not meant to be adopted.”¹

That was only the beginning of the problems.

***

Immediately after his self-deprecating comment mentioned earlier, Ward 6’s Jackson sought clarity on another matter. “Given the mayor’s directive the past two years,” he said, “my issues is, I really can’t get into fulsome debate and, ultimately, a recorded vote, so, is ‘receiving’ today in essence acquiescing to the mayor’s proposed 2026 budget and the tax budget overview presentation? Because if, in some way, I’m acquiescing, I just need to have a recorded vote to be recorded as opposed to even ‘receiving’.”

That’s a complicated couple of sentences, but it boils down to this: Jackson was asking if voting to “receive” the mayor’s memo and the budget overview - basically councillors formally and symbolically saying “yup, we got the report, thanks for that” - would be, in some way, a signal of his tacit approval of the budget. If that was the case, then he was prepared to vote against even acknowledging receipt of the mayor’s correspondence.

Basically, a very public and very formal “buzz off” to the mayor.

Ward 14’s Mike Spadafora chimed in next with another intriguing question.

“Simple question for a simple mind,” he began, picking up where Jackson left off with the self-deprecating quips. “I just want clarity and to be 100% sure, when we talk about a two-thirds majority, what is that number, [City] Clerk Trennum? Is it based on the 16? I want to know exactly what the number is for the two-thirds to veto the budget.”

Let’s pause for another “Municipal 101” side note. Another fun quirk of Ontario’s new and totally well-thought-out “strong mayor powers” is that mayors now have the authority to “veto” council decisions. That means that the mayor can reverse a council decision if the mayor believes that decision would “interfere with a provincial priority”. Provincial priorities are, as follows:

1. Building 1.5 million new homes by December 31, 2031, and

2. Constructing and maintaining infrastructure to support housing, including transit, roads, utilities, and servicing.

That’s it. Those are the province’s outlined priorities. And, because those priorities are purposefully broad and vague, it means mayors have lots of latitude when it comes to vetoing things they aren’t keen on.

But mayoral veto powers are also extended to the whole of the budget process. That means that, if council votes in favour of amendments to the mayor’s budget, the mayor can cancel those amendments for any reason. Yes, the mayor will need to provide, according to the province, “written documentation of the veto and rationale to each member of council and the municipal clerk on the day of the veto”, but they still get to do it.

Council can propose changes to a budget, vote in favour of those changes, and the mayor can undo those changes with the stroke of a pen. Simple as that.

The one saving grace for council is that they have the power to “override” the mayor’s veto. Basically uncancelling what the mayor cancelled. But a council override requires a two-thirds majority of council. It can be hard to get two-thirds of council members to agree on anything, so the idea is that a veto is a very, very, very, challenging thing for a council to do.

What Spadafora was asking the city clerk was: how many of us need to vote the same way to override a veto?

The answer for Hamilton City Council is 11.

Asking that question at the beginning of the budget discussion is a bold move. It’s kind of like stepping up to the altar and, before saying the vows, turning to the officiant and asking “so how long do divorce proceedings usually take?”

One could infer from Spadafora’s question that he’s testing the waters to see how far council can push the mayor, laying the groundwork for an out-and-out rebellion of councillors against the last budget presented by Mayor Andrea Horwath before she, and many of the people around the council horseshoe, face the voters in October.

***

The mayoral election hangs heavy in the air now. Many of the decisions and actions of council will be viewed through the lens of mayoral ambition or a desire on the part of council members to quietly place their support behind candidates and/or distinguish themselves from those running.

That was certainly the case when new Ward 8 Councillor Rob Cooper took the floor after Spadafora during what was supposed to be a pre-budget presentation question-and-answer period about the actual process of the budget meetings.

“The way I see it, I got two budgets in front of me,” Cooper said. “I got one that came out at [a] 5.5 [percent tax increase] and one that came out at [a] 4.25 [percent tax increase]…my expectation of the budgeting process, we’d have one document, but we don’t.”

He continued: “When I ask questions about what the latest budget items were, I was even told that some of the questions couldn’t be addressed unless we went in camera,” he said, implying that some of his questions were such that, to answer them, council would need to lower the cone of silence and keep the questions and answers from the public.

It then fell to the budget chair, Councillor Maureen Wilson, and the city’s General Manager of Finance, Mike Zegarac, to clear up what Cooper had unleashed in the room. Wilson started, letting Cooper know that, no, there were not two budgets, but that there was a preliminary draft released in December at the request of council and a final draft released on January 20 as required by law.²  

After Cooper pressed his belief that there were “two different budgets” and that he had “never seen a budget process like this before”, Wilson once again needed to remind Cooper that council asked for a preliminary draft so they could mull it over during the winter break (after Cooper had been sworn into office, meaning he, too, had the ability to consider the budget over the holidays) before sitting down to debate the final draft in January. “Respectfully, if members of council are not happy with that which is being provided to them, then you are an author of your own unhappiness,” Wilson told the chamber.

Zegarac, for his part, needed to tag in to remind council that the only things they needed to go in camera for were private and personnel matters, as well as contractual matters, meaning that it was highly unlikely any of Cooper’s questions would need to be shielded from the public.

This is Cooper’s first time at the table for a budget conversation, which explains why he said he had “never seen a budget process like this before”. Then again, Cooper has been a long-time Progressive Conservative Party operative, working diligently to elect the party that imposed these changes. Authors of their own unhappiness, indeed.

But what Cooper was laying down is worth considering, if only to once again understand the strategy council’s right wing will employ during this year’s municipal election. “There are two budgets” speaks to the idea that City Hall is dysfunctional and mismanaged, meaning right wingers are needed to “take Hamilton back” and restore “common sense” to our local government. “Some of my questions can’t be answered in public” makes it seem like the right wing bloc on council is a fearless opposition, standing up for taxpayers and being threatened with “cancellation” if they stick their noses where they don’t belong.

Even if Cooper doesn’t run for mayor and passes the right wing baton to another contender, it still signals that on which the right wing campaign will focus. It’s a healthy blend of “sticking up for taxpayers” and “only I can fix it” - a kind of watered-down-MAGA-meets-hyperlocal-Poilievre kind of message. It’ll be interesting to see where they go with that.

Wilson and Councillor Nrinder Nann helped to get things back on track by reminding their colleagues that it was probably a good idea to actually hear the presentation on the budget before debating the specifics. After a quick break, council mostly stuck to their agenda that day with very few hiccups along the way, with one notable exception.

After Mike Zegarac’s budget presentation, Ward 5’s Matt Francis took issue with the omission of “local community arenas” under the heading “priority areas”. In response to Francis’s question, Zegarac provided an answer about all community spaces being priorities before Francis once again brings up the issue of Wild Waterworks. “I want to thank the [Hamilton Conservation Authority (HCA)] chair for taking this seriously. Councillor Clark, he’s been a collaborative leader and communicator as a leader should be and I appreciate how he handles his role as the chair of the HCA,” he says (unsubtly taking a dig at the mayor), before providing some Coles notes on Wild Waterworks.

But then he gets to the meat of his argument (having lost the wedge that Wild Waterworks could have been). “The proposal to take the ice out of Stoney Creek arena…this is really an ineffective attempt at saving taxpayer’s dollars. Taxes go up and services go down. I hear that everywhere I go. Taking ice time away from kids at 6:00 PM on weekends and just saying we can shift it to another arena is just a perfect example of that…”

The speech goes on for some time. He talks about how hard it is to move ice times around, how kids tend to be in school during weekdays and can’t use the ice, how busy the arena is, how silly it was for the city to “waste money” on the Barton Tiffany Outdoor Shelter, how the arena is in good shape. “Is this really how we’re running our city? We talk about respect? How about respect for taxpayers around here?” he asks no one in particular.

The gist of his very long speech is that:

1. The cost is only $161,000, so keeping it in the budget is “insignificant”;

2. The mayor didn’t call him to talk about this proposed cut, which isn’t what real leaders do;

3. He’ll be bringing forward a motion on February 6 to “save” the Stoney Creek Arena, and;

4. He’ll be bringing forward motions to defer repairs to the “arena”, which he said “represent significant cost savings for taxpayers far in excess of the savings of removing the ice.”

Francis gave notice that he’ll bring forward his motion to keep the ice at Stoney Creek Arena on February 6, 2026.

I note the date because it’s just one day shy of 365 days since another hyper-specific Francis motion came to a budget meeting.

See, way back on February 7, 2025, Francis brought a motion to council to trim $25,000 from the city’s budget by cutting the “Poet in Place” program.

The “Whereas” statements on that 07-02-25 motion are interesting.

“WHEREAS, council has declared an affordability crisis…WHEREAS, the threat of looming U.S. tariffs will create an economic recession in Canada…WHEREAS, fiscal responsibility is a priority for the municipality…WHEREAS, [the Poet in Place program costs] could be redirected to provide tax relief to residents by applying the savings directly to the tax levy…” It’s loaded and targeted and oh so populist.

The motion would have seen the $25,000 allocated to the program (a $10,000 honourarium for the poet and $15,000 to install artwork/fund programming) be moved to the city’s capital reserve fund “for the purpose of funding infrastructure projects such as roads, sidewalks, and parks.” That motion failed on an 8-8 tie after Francis was unsuccessful in luring Ward 15 Councillor Ted McMeekin to the right wing side for that vote.

For those keeping track, that’s:

• $161,000 for ice at a Stoney Creek Arena = GOOD

• $25,000 for Hamilton-wide public art = BAD

Now, to be fair to Francis, he did say he was going to pair his motion with proposals for “significant cost savings for taxpayers far in excess of the savings of removing the ice” by suggesting a deferral of maintenance on the arena. And, yes, that will represent some savings for taxpayers.

This year. Kinda. If you don’t think about it too hard.

Deferring maintenance isn’t a way to find savings. All it does is push necessary expenditures down the road so that something that costs $250,000 (a made-up number for illustrative purposes) to fix this year might be closer to $300,000 in even just a year’s time. Factoring in inflation, changing supply chains, and the fact that not fixing a small problem now means it might become a BIG problem later, the final bill for taxpayers might be way more than if they just kept those expenses in the budget this year.

In essence, Francis is proposing saving the taxpayers of 2026 some money by charging the taxpayers of 2027, 2028, 2029 or whenever way more. Standing up for taxpayers today by hurting them tomorrow.

Interesting logic from the team that crows on endlessly about “raiding reserve funds” to keep taxes low. Especially because using the city’s savings account to prevent massive tax increases has only become necessary because a) previous councils regularly used deferring costs as a way to keep taxes artificially low, and b) the right wing has unrepentantly poisoned the well of public discourse against any and all investment in public services, creating a situation where even suggesting we raise taxes to adequately fund anything results in threats of a “taxpayer revolt” at the ballot box.

It’s the right-wing populists’ world and we’re just living in it.

But, in the end, Francis won’t even need to bring forward his motion to “save” Stoney Creek Arena. Five days after that meeting and after a couple of major defeats at council (more on those in a minute), Mayor Horwath issued a statement saying she was directing “staff to ensure the ice plant at the Stoney Creek Arena remains included in the proposed 2026 budget,” while squarely placing the blame for the proposal at the feet of staff (also more on that in a minute).

***

When the question period after Zegarac’s budget presentation concluded, councillors took the floor to deliver their assessment of the budget process so far.

“This year, the mayor didn’t reach out to each one of us after her budget cuts were made, after she made the assessments when staff were done. I don’t recall the phone ringing for me, saying ‘hey, let’s have a conversation about the impacts in Ward 2,” Councillor Cameron Kroetsch said, taking the mayor to task for what he saw as her poor communication, her calling public budget meetings without notice, and her imposition of cuts without consulting community members or councillors.

Councillor Clark also took issue with the lack of communication, saying that members of council would receive calls complaining about service cuts imposed by the mayor that those same members of council had no input on. Ward 14’s Mike Spadafora railed against what he saw as a term-long “spending spree”, focusing intently on how many staff had been hired at city hall.

“I know I run the risk of being highlighted in a social media post if I continue the narrative of possibly speaking out against the process,” Ward 10’s Jeff Beattie said (it’s unclear if he meant Joey Coleman’s reporting on the budget process or if there’s some other online forum where his votes and statements are disseminated), before highlighting some of the cuts with which he took issue.

Ward 11’s Mark Tadeson said he would do work to find better savings that protected what taxpayers care about. Ward 15’s Ted McMeekin made a plea for intergovernmental cooperation so the burden isn’t just on the backs of local ratepayers. Ward 8’s Cooper made the rather bold claim that, “I’d be shocked if the [tax increases for the] next four years were under 8 percent”.

There were critiques from right, left, and centre. While the core reasoning for their concerns may have been different, each councillor circled back to the idea that the budget was created by the mayor with little-to-no input from the community and our elected council.

The mayor, joining the meeting by video conference, responded, saying that “collaboration is with more than just one person. It takes two, takes three, takes four, takes five, and so my door has always been open.” She noted that, while she often invites councillors to participate in financial decisions, in her recollection, few actually take her up on her offer.

And then councillors voted on the reports.

The rebuke was stunning. In an 11-to-5 vote, councillors rejected the motion to “receive” Mayor Horwath’s budget directive memo. Then, moments later, in a 10-to-6 vote, they also rejected receipt of Zegarac’s budget presentation.

Technically, those votes mean nothing. They are symbolic of their collective frustration at the budget process and an indication that they will fight, and fight hard, against much of the mayor’s budget.

A few hours later, Mayor Horwath released a statement on social media that did not acknowledge the defeat, but noted that she looked “forward to the discussions around the amendments that Councillors will bring forward.”

Adding to the Mayor’s budget headache was the extremely savvy move by the Hamilton Public Library (HPL) to make a major service announcement the very same day. Hitting the Spec’s website a day early and the front page of the paper the on the day budget deliberations started was a story about how the Central Library - the flagship of the HPL in the heart of the city - would be closing on Sundays. This temporary service change was due to the lack of funding the HPL has to help the city’s vulnerable population who seek shelter in the library for lack of anywhere else to go on weekends. The HPL’s chief librarian told the Spec: “We can’t really put other library members or residents and staff in a situation where we’re not adequately supporting them.”³

That move, by itself, should be a reminder to never underestimate librarians. Librarians have been thrust into the role of catch-all public servants, required to be tech support, literacy teachers, stewards of public spaces, accessibility experts, social workers, teachers, technicians, historians, research assistants…the list is nearly endless. But, after that delightfully strategic move, we will have to add “political masterminds” to the list.

And that’s because, on Tuesday, January 27 - the first meeting back after the “snow event” weekend - one of the presentations to councillors was on the library budget.

The HPL went into budget discussions asking for a 5.25 percent increase to its budget to meet the needs in the community. They were told by the mayor to cap that increase at 4.25 percent - $375,000 less than what they need for the services they provide.

Council’s conversation around the library budget was less clean than their rebuke of the mayor, but still signaled another point of contention. While Cameron Kroetsch spoke to the need to fund libraries adequately to meet the need in the community, Rob Cooper took a more conventional right wing approach, critiquing the fact that there were some missing audited budget documents (from the city, not the HPL) and that, in the absence of those, they just “seem to know [they] need more money.”

But, even amongst council’s right wing block, there seemed to be some recognition that underfunding the HPL would be a tough sell this year. “I’m saddened by the Sunday [closure] announcement, I’m very saddened by that and let’s hope we can turn that around…I’m very open minded to the 5.25 [percent request]. I know where my priorities are in this corporation and in my community,” Ward 6’s Tom Jackson said.

It was no wonder, then, that Ward 3 Councillor Nrinder Nann told the meeting that a motion would be coming forward “calling for a city-wide approach and partnership”, suggesting that the HPL might get all it wanted. Nann was one of the few councillors who voted in favour of “receiving” the mayor’s memorandum, meaning that a vote in favour of increasing the HPL’s budget to 5.25 percent might have the support of between 11 to 15 members of council - a “veto proof” majority.

Another blow to the mayor’s budget.

***

By January 28, it was clear that council was in outright rebellion against Mayor Horwath. And she did not help matters one bit.

The discussion that day was supposed to be on the “Healthy and Safe Communities” portion of the budget. But, before the initial items could come forward, Horwath took the floor to provide a clarification about the Stoney Creek Arena issue.

“The direction was unequivocal when it came to any kind of changes to ice time or hours of use of hockey and ice skating arena facilities,” she said, before noting “What I did - what I always do - is, instead of chopping people’s heads off or embarrassing staff, I did the professional thing, which is ask them to have a look at what happened and give me some advice as to how to fix it.”

Basically, the mayor said that she never really wanted cuts to arenas and so she went back and asked staff to “fix” that proposed cut.

But then, she adds a line that undercuts both her previous statement and the entire budget process. Indeed, if any one line has the potential to become Horwath’s version of John Turner’s 1984 self-destruct button of a line, “Well, I’ve told you and told the Canadian people, Mr. Mulroney, that I had no option,” or Jack Layton’s biting 2011 dig at Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, “You know, most Canadians, if they don’t show up for work, they don’t get a promotion,” it may be this one.

“Again, I thought it was important to let folks know that I found out at the same time as everybody else…”

That was, in essence, the mayor saying that she found out about the cuts to Stoney Creek Arena after she released her budget.

Francis jumped at that. “I do find it curious that the mayor doesn’t know what’s in the mayor’s budget,” he said. The mayor jumped in with a point of order almost immediately.

“I’ve stated clearly that I learned about the situation at the same time as everyone else…but for a member to then suggest that’s not the truth is actually a point of order…I’m offended by it and I want it withdrawn,” she said while Francis audibly repeated “no”.

“It’s not a point of order, with the greatest respect,” said Brad Clark, noting that Francis didn’t question the “truthfulness” of what the mayor said but was, instead, “surprised that the mayor had not read her own budget.”

Chair Wilson rules that it isn’t a point of order, so the mayor pivots to speaking to a point of privilege.

Time for one more “Municipal 101” side note!

• A point of order is intended to request a ruling on a breach of meeting procedure.

• A point of privilege is intended to quickly raise concern over improper, unparliamentary, or otherwise uncivil behaviour.

Minor side note, but an important one.

The mayor tries to push back, but keeps returning to her original statement, evidently missing that Francis didn’t say she was being less-than-truthful, rather that it was shocking that she didn’t know what was in her own budget.

Cameron Kroetsch chimed in providing some different wording. “I think what I heard, and what I’ve heard from residents when they’ve reached out to me about this, is the question ‘Didn’t the mayor look at the budget before it was released publicly?’ That is the question I’m hearing,” he noted before outlining the expectation in the community, namely that the mayor tasked staff with designing a budget which she would then go over in detail before releasing it so that any possible miscommunications or issues - like closing Wild Waterworks or defunding the Stoney Creek Arena or requiring the HPL to make dramatic service cuts - would be cleared up ahead of time.

Wilson again ended the discussion shortly after and the intended presentation began.

By Friday morning, Hamiltonians awoke to a front-page Scott Radley editorial with the headline “Mayor blaming staff for arena issue makes both look bad.”

Radley, in three rhetorical questions, summarizes that short debate at council. “Isn’t this her budget? If the rink somehow got on the list without her authorization, how did it stay there? Didn’t she proofread the whole thing a few times before it was released?” the paper-of-record’s taxpayer-focused columnist mused.⁴

***

Council will continue to meet and work this week before Friday’s big General Issues Committee meeting where they will first have an opportunity to debate amendments to the mayor’s budget. The agenda isn’t complete yet, but they have, so far, 31 pieces of written correspondence, the majority of which are pleas to not “defund” the Stoney Creek Arena. As per the mayor’s note last week, that particular proposed cost savings is off the agenda.

But that doesn’t matter at this point. The issues are too great to be fixed by saving ice time at one arena.

During their initial meeting, councillors complained about a lack of collaboration and communication. Councillors from all ideological backgrounds and all corners of the city had similar critiques. They were surprised by aspects of the budget when, in reality, they should have had a hand in finding savings and identifying where investment was needed the most.

Councillors raised the idea that, last year, the mayor was opposed to a hard ceiling on tax increases while, this year, the conversation was guided by an arbitrary number. Some councillors said the “out-of-thin-air” 4.25 percent tax increase cap means a lower quality of service for residents even though taxes are still going up (best exemplified by the proposed HPL cuts). Others said that 4.25 percent was still too high and that deeper cuts were needed (though not when it came to community resources in their wards, of course).

But, worst of all was the comment by the mayor last week that she “found out at the same time as everybody else…” about some of the cuts. She later clarified to the Spec that “she ‘absolutely’ looked at the budget prior to it being released to the public”, but that isn’t the point anymore.⁵

The erroneous reports of the end of Wild Waterworks, the quick turnaround on the Stoney Creek Arena cuts, the underfunding of the HPL…each of those points signals one thing very clearly.

Mayor Andrea Horwath has lost control.

This October, Horwath will be in a fight for her political life. With council in out-and-out rebellion against her leadership with just three months to go until registrations open for the municipal election, that fight just got a lot harder.

If council successfully reworks her budget into their budget, then she’ll be walking into this campaign without any allies, without any notable wins, and with very serious lingering questions about her leadership abilities.

Council may have just handed the mayoral election to somebody else.

1  ^{Mac Christie. “How was Stoney Creek arena closure mistakenly added to mayor’s budget?” Hamilton Spectator, January 29, 2026 (Spec link - Paywalled)q.}

2  ^{Note to readers: I still do part-time contract work for Councillor Maureen Wilson. As stated before, my work does not influence this newsletter, I am in no way compelled to write anything by anyone, and I do not share any of what I write with Councillor Wilson. There always has been and always will be a firm firewall between the work I do for Councillor Wilson and this newsletter.}

3  ^{Teviah Moro. “Downtown Hamilton library to close Sundays amid safety concerns” Hamilton Spectator, January 22, 2026 (Spec link - Paywalled).}

4  ^{Scott Radley. “Mayor blaming staff for arena issue makes both look bad” Hamilton Spectator, January 30, 2026 (Spec link - Paywalled).}

5  ^{Mac Christie. “How was Stoney Creek arena closure mistakenly added to mayor’s budget?” Hamilton Spectator, January 29, 2026 (Spec link - Paywalled).}