British ColumbiaVancouver Mayor Ken Sim’s final chance at delivering the type of low tax increases he promised in his election campaign will come to a head next week.Sim says any freeze wouldn’t affect core services, but opposition councillors are skepticalCBC News · Posted: Oct 02, 2025 8:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 3 hours agoVancouver Mayor Ken Sim will introduce a motion that asks staff to present a 2026 budget with no increase to the local portion of the property tax bill. (Ben Nelms/CBC)Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim’s final chance at delivering the type of low tax increases he promised in his election campaign will come to a head next week.”The mayor feels it’s important that we zero in on the zero per cent option,” said Coun. Sarah Kirby-Yung, explaining the rationale for a motion by Sim heading to council next week that asks staff to present a 2026 budget with no increase to the local portion of the property tax bill. “We know that our economic challenges are going to be here for some time. And we want to make sure that … the City of Vancouver is well positioned to deliver on those services that only we provide.”In his 2022 winning campaign, Sim criticized the nearly 25 per cent increases in cumulative property taxes under then-mayor Kennedy Stewart, and said his experience as a businessman would help keep future tax increases at or below inflation. But Sim’s first budget as mayor saw a tax increase of over 10 per cent, and an independent task force’s recommendations did not spark large reform to the next two budgets. (CBC Graphics)Kirby-Yung said she was confident that if council endorsed Sim’s motion, staff would be able to freeze Vancouver’s $2.3 billion budget, balancing mandatory staff wage increases and other inflationary pressures without cutting into core services. “We’ve been very clear that services like library hours, centre workers, gardeners, boots on the ground, folks in engineering are the priority,” she said. “We have a new city manager on board. We’ll look to them to see what they make in terms of recommendations to operationalize this. But I do believe that there’s a lot of opportunity.”A Vancouver property tax freeze would only affect the city’s portion of the property tax bill, and not those controlled by Metro Vancouver or the provincial government. (CBC Graphics)Taxes high, or low?In B.C., municipalities are not allowed to run yearly operational deficits, and property taxes go up based on the amount councils budget for the upcoming fiscal year compared to the previous one, roughly assessed as a percentage of one’s property value. The City of Vancouver’s property taxes are among the highest in Metro Vancouver in raw dollar figures, with the median single-family homeowner paying around $8,400 last year. (CBC Graphics)But as a percentage of property values, Vancouver’s tax rate is significantly lower than most Canadian municipalities, which periodically prompts debate over tax reform. “Our property taxes on the residential side are low relative to what they really should be by any economic calculation,” said Tom Davidoff, associate professor at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business.”But we’ve had very high rates of tax growth, and that isn’t sustainable.”Kirby-Yung acknowledged that Vancouver’s base tax rate — generally known as the “mill rate” — is lower than most Canadian municipalities, but argued it was imperative for the city to give relief to citizens. “If you look at it in just total dollars, people are paying fairly significant amounts,” she said. “More people are not going out to restaurants … there are signs of economic strife everywhere. So to me, we need to look at the fact that we have one of the most expensive housing markets in the country and property taxes are yet one more bill that people have to factor in.”At the same time, OneCity Coun. Lucy Maloney is worried that if Sim’s motion passes, the proposed cuts by staff could lead to real pain for those same citizens. “It seems very performative. It doesn’t seem to be well planned,” Maloney said.”If we lose funding for grants and social services and arts programs and the park board, we’re gonna lose more people through the cracks.”
Ken Sim proposes Vancouver property tax freeze in his final budget before next year’s election
