Property tax policy has become a flashpoint in city halls and provincial legislatures across the country this year, as officials in Ontario, Saskatchewan, Atlantic Canada and Toronto grapple with how to divide the tax burden between homeowners and businesses, and how — or whether — to update the property values those bills are based on.
Ontario’s Frozen Assessments Create Winners and Losers
In Ontario, the most consequential issue may be one most taxpayers don’t realize is happening: the province froze property assessments in 2020 during the pandemic and has never restarted them. The Municipal Property Assessment Corporation, the non-profit that values properties for municipal tax purposes, last issued fully phased-in assessments based on January 2016 figures — meaning bills across the province are still calculated on decade-old property values.
According to data MPAC provided to The Globe and Mail, residential properties across Ontario have seen an estimated average price increase of 91 per cent since 2016, with the Greater Toronto Area up 72 per cent. Commercial properties saw a median increase of 103 per cent over the same period. Because the freeze locked in 2016 values rather than the tax rates themselves, property owners whose values rose faster than their municipality’s average have effectively been undertaxed, while those in slower-growth areas — or in sectors, like shopping malls, that lost value — have been overpaying for years.
Paul Sullivan, a B.C.-based property-tax consultant with Ryan ULC, has been pushing Ontario to end the freeze, arguing the lack of public understanding is masking a widespread problem. His firm’s review of 1,643 detached Scarborough homes sold last year estimated 40 per cent of owners were paying more than $1,000 too much annually in property tax. He also estimated that half of Toronto condo owners, based on 2025 sale prices, were similarly overpaying, while struggling regional malls and main-street retailers have continued to be taxed as if it were 2016 despite falling in value. Logistics and warehousing properties, by contrast, may be under-assessed and could face higher bills once values are updated.
Most other provinces continue reassessing regularly — British Columbia and Alberta do so every year — with New Brunswick the exception, having imposed a one-year freeze this year as it reforms its own system. The Association of Municipalities of Ontario has called for a return to reassessments at least every two years. Ontario Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy has said the government is still reviewing the issue, citing pandemic recovery and tariff-related uncertainty, and has not set a timeline for restarting the system.
Commercial-Residential Split Divides Prairie and Atlantic Cities
Separately from assessment timing, many municipalities also set different tax rates for residential and commercial properties of equal value — a gap that varies widely across the country and is drawing renewed scrutiny.
In Saskatoon, city hall is preparing an online survey and focus groups, starting in October, to gather public input on its business/residential tax ratio, currently set at 1.71 — meaning non-residential property owners pay $1.71 in tax for every dollar paid by a residential owner on a comparably valued property. Homeowners this year are expected to cover more than two-thirds of the city’s $356.8 million in property tax collections. Councillor Randy Donauer, who requested the public engagement, acknowledged the debate is unlikely to end in consensus, while Keith Moen of the North Saskatoon Business Association welcomed the review but cautioned against treating survey results as definitive policy guidance.
Saskatoon’s ratio is relatively low compared with other Western Canadian cities: Regina sits at 1.61 and Winnipeg at 1.44, while Calgary (4.63), Edmonton (3.26), Vancouver (3.53) and Surrey (2.54) place considerably heavier tax loads on non-residential properties.
A similar imbalance is documented in Atlantic Canada. A new Canadian Federation of Independent Business report examining 80 municipalities across the four Atlantic provinces found commercial properties face municipal tax rates 146 per cent higher than residential properties of equal value in Nova Scotia, 142 per cent higher in Prince Edward Island, 67 per cent higher in New Brunswick and 55 per cent higher in Newfoundland and Labrador. In Newfoundland and Labrador, once municipal business taxes tied to assessment are factored in, the average effective multiplier rises to 3.20. CFIB’s Atlantic director, Frédéric Gionet, said the smallest businesses feel it most: among firms with fewer than five employees, 31 per cent report property tax consuming more than 10 per cent of operating costs, and 40 per cent say it has significantly hurt profitability, with some delaying investment, expansion or staffing as a result. CFIB is calling on municipalities to narrow and eventually eliminate the commercial premium, arguing the same overall revenue could be spread more evenly across the tax base rather than collected disproportionately from business properties.
Toronto’s Election-Year Tax Promises
Property tax has also become a campaign issue in Toronto’s mayoral race. Mayor Olivia Chow’s campaign has pledged to keep future tax increases “at or around” the rate of inflation if she is re-elected, pointing to a nearly $2-billion budget shortfall she inherited in 2023 and increases since then that included a 9.5 per cent hike and a 6.9 per cent hike in prior years, before this year’s 2.2 per cent increase came in slightly below inflation. Rival candidate Brad Bradford has criticized Chow for not honouring an earlier promise of “modest” increases, while candidate Chris Alexander has pledged no tax increase in his first year in office and below-inflation increases in year two, calling Chow’s inflation-linked pledge a “flimsy campaign promise.”
Taken together, the disputes in Ontario, Saskatchewan, Atlantic Canada and Toronto illustrate that property tax policy — how values are assessed, how the burden is split between homeowners and businesses, and how fast bills are allowed to rise — remains one of the more contentious and locally variable areas of Canadian fiscal policy.
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