Durham Region residents may be asked to cough up more than $1 billion in 2026 property taxes if the staff recommendation gets approved by the regional council.
The Region of Durham’s financial staff recommended a tax increase of 6.04 per cent on Thursday.
“The presentation was slanted towards the increase but under strong questioning by myself, the regional treasurer admitted that this proposed budget and tax increase will result in tax payments being over $1 billion directly from Durham taxpayers for the first time in the history of the Region of Durham,” said Regional councillor Brian Nicholson, from Oshawa.
“Before everyone finds themselves on the floor staring up at the ceiling over this information, the $1 billion I quote is the total amount of the budget from property taxes, not the 2026 tax increase. Last year the region collected $985 million and this year it increases approx. $80 million to go over the billion barrier,” the councillor pointed out.
He said this record amount represents about half of the amount of $2.26 billion included in this budget.
“Of course, while they like to indicate that the other billion does not come from Durham taxpayers but from federal grants, provincial subsidies, fees, transit fares, development charges and a myriad of other sources, they seem to forget that the taxpayers also pay for those contributions through their provincial and federal income taxes,” Nicholson pointed out.
“While there is no shortage of taxes and fees, there is only one taxpayer,” he said.
“I am hopeful that some common sense will appear and we can reduce this increase considerably,” he added.
Proposed 2026 Durham Tax Increases
- Durham Region: 6.04% (own portion 3.18%)
- Durham Police: 3%
- City of Pickering: 3.49% own portion
- Town of Ajax: 4.9%
- Town of Whitby: 3.49%
- City of Oshawa: 3.98% own portion
- Municipality of Clarington: 3% (own portion 0.99%)
- Township of Scugog: 4.12% own portion
- Township of Brock 4.87% (own portion 3.79%)
- Township of Uxbridge: 1.28% own portion
The above tax increases may have to be approved or may automatically come into force.
Why is it that the cities with the highest population density who have paved roads, sewage and town water are paying less (%) than rural communities that do not have these advantages and usually pay higher property taxes?
DISGUSTING RISE IN PROPERTY TAXES. I AM APPALLED AT THE AUDACITY OF THIS REGIONAL GOVERNMENT
Time to move back to Toronto. This is nuts!
Why are we.. the tax payers paying for the developers infrastructure. You want to build it.. you pay for it!!! Keep your hands out of my pocket.
Why is it that every year taxes keep going up and infrastructure, roads in particular get worse? Is it to keep up with the modern trend of “pay more… get less” all levels of government don’t have a revenue problem but do have a spending problem. If taxpayers started to see some real benefits to where their hard earned $’s are being spent then maybe there would not be that much resistance to paying taxes.As mentioned before there is only 1 tax payer. Be careful to not killl the goose that lays the golden egg
Here’s a novel idea, cut back on what you are spending!! It’s clear as day that the taxpayer is just viewed as an endless source of revenue, no matter what they have to pay! Our properly taxes when we bought 11 years ago were $3400/yr, in 2025 they were just a hair under $6400!! Our elected ‘officials’ are slowly putting everyone into poverty.
Whe do we get a region that looks after it’s citizens instead of just trying to attract new ones?
Also when are the police in Durham actually going to start working instead of camping out in bushes trying to catch drivers driving highway speeds on a highway?
Councillor Nicholson has nailed the sentiment felt by residents of Durham. Assuming there are no repercussions from making a public comment as encountered in the past my recommendation would be to cut both DRPS and the Region portion of the tax increase by 50%. Trying to rationalize the proposed increase by expressing the amount as only $xx per month increase comes no where close to the 2% pension increase I can look forward to in 2026
Durum Region residents pay already the highest property tax in all Ontario while other municipal like york region and Markham even Milton, Toronto all other have way lower taxes with more and better services then Durham this is not acceptable they take more taxes and then they go and install 1 million dollar door in Whitby municipal building and put money in their pockets this corruption has to stop and give back to communities or we have to move out or theses mayors and councillors are not getting my vote this coming election.enough is enough