Article content

Carleton University researchers say the City of Ottawa is balancing the $3-billion municipal budget on the backs of poor people, setting the stage for consultations and debates on council’s spending priorities in 2017.

The university’s Centre for Urban Research and Education crunched the city’s budget numbers since 2009 and discovered spending in social services hasn’t increased at the same rate of other departments, such as emergency services, health and parks and recreation. The report highlights a decrease in per-capita tax spending on community and social services, while there have been increases in the other three areas.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or City balancing budget on the backs of the poor, researchers claim Back to video

While the study was commissioned by the Coalition of Community Health Resource Centres of Ottawa, researcher Steve Pomeroy said he looked at the historical budget numbers objectively.

“It does display what may surprise some folks at the staff level and political level at the city,” Pomeroy said.