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Taxpayers Federation: Canada’s largest city overpaying for construction $350 million a year

Published

1 year ago

5 minute read

From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

Author: Jay Goldberg 

Favouring unions costs taxpayers dearly

They say less is more, especially when it comes to budgeting. Apparently, Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow never got the memo.

Canada’s largest city keeps overpaying on construction projects, to the tune of $350 million a year. The reason, in many cases, is that only union-affiliated firms need apply.

With modest construction contracting reform, Toronto could save a bundle and see property taxes frozen for 2025.

Over the past two years, Toronto politicians voted to increase property taxes by a whopping 18 per cent. Last year’s increase alone was 9.5 per cent.

Because of these massive property tax increases, many families were pushed to the brink.

Property tax bills for most Torontonians soared by hundreds of dollars over the past two years.

Yet so much of this pain could have been avoided with a little common-sense policymaking.

Would you refuse to even consider quotes from a non-unionized company? Or would you get quotes from everyone and then make your decision?

To nearly everyone on the planet other than Toronto’s zany politicians, the choice is obvious.

But when you’re a Toronto politician spending other people’s money, apparently open competition to find the best deal isn’t a priority.

Right now, Toronto uses a closed-tendering approach to award contracts for some of the city’s most expensive construction projects. That means only a handful of companies associated with a small group of unions can bid on those jobs.

Cardus, a non-partisan thinktank, released a report last year projecting Toronto was poised to award $1.7 billion in construction projects through a closed tendering process in 2023. Because Toronto only allows a small number of unionized construction companies to bid on those jobs, the cost goes up.

In fact, Cardus estimated Toronto taxpayers were set to overpay on construction projects in 2023 to the tune of $350 million due to a lack of competition.

Closed tendering used to be the norm in Ontario. Every city across the province overpaid on construction projects to cater to big unions.

That all changed in 2019, when the Ford government passed legislation allowing municipalities to open up the construction contracting process to real competition.

Sadly, Toronto has thus far chosen not to take advantage of the Ford government’s legislative reforms to save a boatload of cash.

But nearby cities sure have.

Consider the example of Hamilton.

Hamilton was one of the first cities in Ontario to take advantage of the Ford government’s reforms. Cardus estimates Hamilton is saving 21 per cent on its construction projects because the city opened up its contracting process. This single reform did a great deal to improve the city’s bottom line.

Yet Toronto politicians appear stuck in the past. During last year’s mayoral by-election, only two candidates, Councillor Brad Bradford and Anthony Furey, pledged to follow Hamilton in reforming construction contracts.

There has been no indication from Chow, who won that by-election, that this common-sense reform is even on the table.

Last year, Chow and council increased property taxes by 9.5 per cent, the highest property tax hike in Toronto’s history.

Had Chow implemented construction reform and saved the $350 million Cardus pointed to, last year’s property tax increase could have been wiped out entirely.

Think about that. Chow had a choice: save money through competitive bidding or hammer taxpayers with a huge tax hike.

The mayor picked the tax hike.

To break the cycle of massive property tax hikes, it’s high time Toronto looked at construction contract reform.

Taxpayers shouldn’t put up with politicians overpaying on construction contracts to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a year, only to see those same politicians turn around and impose record property tax hikes.

This isn’t just a problem restricted to Toronto: taxpayers from British Columbia to Quebec themselves face similar anti-competitive policies at the provincial level.

It’s time for politicians to put taxpayers, not unions, first.

Chow should implement common-sense construction contracting reforms to head off a massive property tax increase in 2025.

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Carney government’s anti-oil sentiment no longer in doubt

Published on November 19, 2025

By

From the Fraser Institute

By Kenneth P. Green

The Carney government, which on Monday survived a confidence vote in Parliament by the skin of its teeth, recently released a “second tranche of nation-building projects” blessed by the Major Projects Office. To have a chance to survive Canada’s otherwise oppressive regulatory gauntlet, projects must get on this Caesar-like-thumbs-up-thumbs-down list.

The first tranche of major projects released in September included no new oil pipelines but pertained largely to natural gas, nuclear power, mineral production, etc. The absence of proposed oil pipelines was not surprising, as Ottawa’s regulatory barricade on oil production means no sane private company would propose such a project. (The first tranche carries a price tag of $60 billion in government/private-sector spending.)

Now, the second tranche of projects also includes not a whiff of support for oil production, transport and export to non-U.S. markets. Again, not surprising as the prime minister has done nothing to lift the existing regulatory blockade on oil transport out of Alberta.

So, what’s on the latest list?

There’s a “conservation corridor” for British Columbia and Yukon; more LNG projects (both in B.C.); more mineral projects (nickel, graphite, tungsten—all electric vehicle battery constituents); and still more transmission for “clean energy”—again, mostly in B.C. And Nunavut comes out ahead with a new hydro project to power Iqaluit. (The second tranche carries a price tag of $58 billion in government/private-sector spending.)

No doubt many of these projects are worthy endeavours that shouldn’t require the imprimatur of the “Major Projects Office” to see the light of day, and merit development in the old-fashioned Canadian process where private-sector firms propose a project to Canada’s environmental regulators, get necessary and sufficient safety approval, and then build things.

However, new pipeline projects from Alberta would also easily stand on their own feet in that older regulatory regime based on necessary and sufficient safety approval, without the Carney government additionally deciding what is—or is not—important to the government, as opposed to the market, and without provincial governments and First Nations erecting endless barriers.

Regardless of how you value the various projects on the first two tranches, the second tranche makes it crystal clear (if it wasn’t already) that the Carney government will follow (or double down) on the Trudeau government’s plan to constrain oil production in Canada, particularly products derived from Alberta’s oilsands. There’s nary a mention that these products even exist in the government’s latest announcement, despite the fact that the oilsands are the world’s fourth-largest proven reserve of oil. This comes on the heels on the Carney government’s first proposed budget, which also reified the government’s fixation to extinguish greenhouse gas emissions in Canada, continue on the path to “net-zero 2050” and retain Canada’s all-EV new car future beginning in 2036.

It’s clear, at this point, that the Carney government is committed to the policies of the previous Liberal government, has little interest in harnessing the economic value of Canada’s oil holdings nor the potential global influence Canada might exert by exporting its oil products to Asia, Europe and other points abroad. This policy fixation will come at a significant cost to future generations of Canadians.

Kenneth P. Green

Senior Fellow, Fraser Institute
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Business

Nearly One-Quarter of Consumer-Goods Firms Preparing to Exit Canada, Industry CEO Warns Parliament

Published on November 18, 2025

By

The Opposition with Dan Knight

Dan Knight's avatar Dan Knight

Standing Committee on Industry and Technology hears stark testimony that rising costs and stalled investment are pushing companies out of the Canadian market.

There’s a number that should stop this country cold: twenty-three percent. That is the share of companies in one of Canada’s essential manufacturing and consumer-goods sectors now preparing to withdraw products from the Canadian market or exit entirely within the next two years. And this wasn’t whispered at a business luncheon or buried in a consultancy memo. It was delivered straight to Parliament, at the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry and Technology, during its study on Canada’s underlying productivity gaps and capital outflow.

Michael Graydon, the CEO of Food, Health & Consumer Products of Canada, didn’t hedge or soften the message. He told MPs, “23% of our members expect to exit products from the Canadian marketplace within the next two years, because the cost of doing business here has just become unsustainable.”

Unsustainable. That’s the word he used. And when the people who actually make things in this country start using that word, you should pay attention. These aren’t fringe players or hypothetical startups. These are firms that supply the goods Canadians buy every single day, and they’re looking at their balance sheets, their regulatory burdens, the delays in getting anything approved or built, and concluding that Canada simply doesn’t work for them anymore.

What makes this more troubling is the timing. Canada’s investment levels have been falling for years, even as the United States and other competitors race ahead. Businesses aren’t reinvesting in machinery or technology at the rate they once did. They’re not modernizing their operations here. They’re putting expansion plans on hold or shifting them to jurisdictions that move faster, cost less and offer clearer rules. That’s not ideology; it’s arithmetic. If it costs more to operate here, if it takes longer to get a permit, and if supply chains back up because ports and rail lines are jammed, investors will choose the place that doesn’t make growth a bureaucratic mountain climb.

Graydon raised another point that ought to concern anyone who cares about domestic production. Canada’s agrifood sector recorded a sixty-billion-dollar trade surplus last year, one of the brightest spots in the national economy, but according to him that potential is being “diluted by fragmented interprovincial trade and logistics bottlenecks.” The ports, the rail corridors, the entire transport network—choke points everywhere. And you can’t build a productive economy on choke points. Companies can’t scale, can’t guarantee delivery, can’t justify the costs. So they leave.

This twenty-three percent figure is the clearest evidence yet that the problem isn’t theoretical. It’s not something for think-tank panels or academic papers. It is happening at the level that matters most: the decision whether to continue doing business in Canada or move operations somewhere more predictable. And once those decisions are made, they’re very hard to reverse. Capital doesn’t boomerang back out of patriotism. It goes where it can earn a return.

For years, Canadian policymakers have talked about productivity as if it were a moral failing of workers or a mystical national characteristic. It’s neither. Productivity comes from investment—real money poured into equipment, technology, training and expansion. When investment stalls, productivity collapses. And when a quarter of firms in a major sector are already planning their exit, you are not looking at a temporary dip. You are looking at a structural rejection of the business environment itself.

The fact that executives are now openly warning Parliament that they cannot afford to stay is a moment of clarity. It is also a test. Either this country becomes a place where people can build things again—quickly, affordably, competitively—or it continues down the path that leads to empty factories, hollowed-out supply chains and consumers who wonder why the shelves look thinner every year.

Twenty-three percent is not just a statistic. It’s the sound of a warning bell ringing at full volume. The only question now is whether anyone in charge hears it.

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