THUNDER BAY — There were no substantive changes to the city’s 2026 operating budget, but plenty of conversation on funding safety and security programs, in the first of two budget review meetings Monday.
A majority of city departments presented their budgets and took questions from council, but the debate focused on a handful of safety initiatives that make up a very small portion of the $638 million budget.
The budget proposes to spread just under $1 million of provincial funding between several initiatives, including staffing municipal bylaw enforcement officers, transit’s mobile safety and security pilot, special constables at the Thunder Bay Public Library, and the downtown cores community safety ambassador program.
Coun. Rajni Agarwal put forward an amendment to cut $330,000 in funding for ambassadors’ pilot project.
Although her amendment failed to gain the support of her fellow council members and no one seconded the amendment, it dominated the discussion.
Agarwal argued the downtown core’s ambassador program was a little too much with two other safety initiatives, on top of regular policing, in the area.
“I don’t think we need all four. If I’m baking a cake, I’m not gonna get three different types of sugar to sweeten it. I’m gonna get one and add it a bit and see if it works out. But we’re saying, hey, we’re gonna get three different types of sweeteners to make this pot and this cake sound taste better. To move people along and suggest for tourism, I’m not sold on that,” Agarwal said.
The ambassador program is set to begin in May 2026. The pilot will deploy two-person teams during peak business hours to provide a “visible and compassionate” presence focused on safety, well-being, business support, and visitor assistance.
“We do see this as an additional layer and complementary to the additional safety and security enhancements,” Cynthia Olsen, director of strategy and engagement, told council. “This type of program is anticipated to be a pilot for the next year and a half and has been investigated in other communities such as, downtown Yonge in Toronto, Barrie, Kelowna, Winnipeg, and several others do have similar type programs. This is meant to be service-oriented, and responsive to the needs and the desires that we’ve been hearing from the BIAs.”
“I think that these different layers of support are more like the icing, the cake, and, you know, the jelly filling. And that makes a good cake, and it makes a tasty cake,” Coun. Andrew Foulds said.
The Waterfront BIA has been developing the ambassador program for years, said Foulds, who is the council representative on the BIA.
He said the “ambassadors” will have social services training to aid people in need, but will also be equipped with Thunder Bay knowledge for tourists walking the downtown cores.
“We continue to hire security guards. Every place has a security guard. We’ve got police being hired, you know, significant numbers of police, ambassadors, people monitoring. Are we heading towards a police state, or what’s the word from other municipalities?” Coun. Mark Bentz asked.
“I certainly wouldn’t characterize it as a police state,” city manager John Collin said. “But what has become recognized, and we are not alone in this, is that there are increased safety and security concerns now that municipalities are experiencing that quite frankly did not exist three decades ago.”
There was no opioid crisis 30 years ago, said Collin, and the crisis has led to a “tremendous security challenge in all municipalities.”
He said police costs have increased substantially across all municipalities in Ontario, which has led others to enhance safety and security through different programming.
“Quite frankly, in some cases, you don’t need a fully qualified police officer at a fairly expensive wage rate when something less than that can address the safety or security concern. That’s, for example, our bylaw enforcement team and our ambassadors. We’re clearly paying a lot less for them than for police constables,” Collin said.
He added Thunder Bay is spending over 40 per cent of its budget on emergency response, and “sooner or later this is going to become unsustainable.”
The province will need to deal with these funding challenges in the “not too distant future,” he said.
The ambassador program survived the meeting with its funding intact.
Council unanimously approved two changes to the budget: the 2026 user fees for the Tbaytel Multiplex and an adjustment to the number of full-time employees.
Both amendments corrected items that should have been included in the budget all along, explained city staff.
Two temporary human resource positions were added and should originally have been included in the fully-funded digital strategy capital project, an oversight, said general manager of corporate services and city treasurer Keri Greaves.
Tbaytel Multiplex user fee adjustments corrected a clerical error, according to a memo to council by Greaves.
The proposed fees were excluded from the initial budget draft, but as they are new, the fees will now be highlighted in the budget’s summary of notable changes. The new fees are not expected to take effect until the turf facility is open in the fall of 2026.
The budgets for the city’s infrastructure and operations department, as well as city-funded boards, agencies and commissions will be debated Wednesday evening.
The Thunder Bay Police Service is asking for $64.8 million from the city, a 9.1 per cent increase over 2025’s $59.3 million.
Thunder Bay Fire Rescue is projecting a 4.6 per cent increase in 2026, totalling just over $38.3 million. In 2025, fire rescue budgeted $36.6 million.
On the rate-supported side of the budget, the Bare Point Water Treatment Plant is budgeting just over $38.3 million in 2026, an increase from $37.2 million in 2025.
