After months of discussions and staff presentations on Niagara Region’s 2026 budget, councillors find themselves between a rock and a hard place.

There are no easy answers as they seek to limit the Region’s tax increase, reduce a massive infrastructure deficit and maintain increasingly costly programs that residents rely upon.

“We have the continuing tension between the sustainability of the Region’s operations and affordability for the people who are paying the taxes that allow us to operate this Region,” said Fort Erie Mayor Wayne Redekop, who serves as Niagara Region budget committee chair, at Thursday’s meeting.

“I know that the decisions that we’re going to have to make in terms of sustainability, the continuation of services and the need to ensure that we have good infrastructure

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