TORONTO

Mayor Rob Ford broke ranks with his council allies and voted against a part of his own budget Tuesday.

Ford shocked many — including some supporters on council — by voting for a surprise move by Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti to freeze taxes in the 2013 budget rather than approve the 2% hike proposed by his own budget chief and endorsed by his executive committee.

The vote to freeze taxes lost 40-4. Ford then went on to vote in favour of the budget’s proposed 2% increase.

Ford’s vote came after he urged councillors to support the budget in its entirety and prompted sharp criticism from councillors on his executive committee.

“I don’t understand why he did it,” Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong said after the vote. “It seems to me that some of us are more supportive of his budget than he is.

“I don’t think any mayor in the history of the City of Toronto has proposed a budget and then voted against his own tax rate increase.”

Minnan-Wong questioned if Ford truly understood what he did when he voted for the tax freeze.

George Christopoulos, Ford’s press secretary, said Ford was being open-minded.

“If Council supported it, he’d happily find the money,” Christopoulos said. “But they didn’t. He is fine with that. He is pleased with the budget that’s been assembled.”

Ford himself shrugged off the vote.

“If anyone can show me the savings, I’m going to support it,” he said.

In pushing for a tax freeze, Mammoliti argued the city could make up the revenue with a casino boat on the city’s shore and avoid cuts to emergency services like Toronto Fire.

“You could effectively and immediately set up a temporary casino on a boat on the waterfront,” he told council.

Councillor Doug Ford accused Minnan-Wong of “politicking."

“You guys know Rob, he’s not going to vote for an increase if he doesn’t have to,” Ford said. “That’s just Rob saying we don’t really need it. We have a 0% but 2% is what he can get through council.

“He’s been very flexible on this budget. It’s a great budget. It’s an infrastructure budget. It is the best budget in North America,” he added.

Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday said the 2% tax hike was needed to balance the budget.

“I don’t know how they intended to do it without having that 2%,” he said.

But Holyday said he didn’t feel “abandoned” by the mayor and dismissed the suggestion he voted against the budget.