Renegotiating Toronto’s snow removal contracts could cost up to $130 million
Looks like another winter of chaos is in the forecast
We weren’t quite ready for words like “snowfall warning,” but last weekend’s early season storm set a new record anyway.
By this morning, most of the city had recorded at least five centimetres of snow. According to a CityNews report, which examined data from Environment and Climate Change Canada and WeatherStats, this makes it the earliest accumulation recorded at Pearson International Airport since October of 1969. Usually it takes until around December 12 for Pearson to see five centimetres.
The fact that snow came really early this year—with the Ontario Provincial Police reporting 340 snow-related road incidents in the GTA—reminds us of last winter, when a February storm left Toronto under 50 centimetres the city was unprepared for. Removal took weeks, with Torontonians forced to hike through snowbanks covering sidewalks in the meantime. Many complained about snowplows blocking their vehicles and driveways with snow dumped from the roads.
According to a recent CBC story, this isn’t likely to improve. “Toronto’s snow-clearing contracts contain no provisions for snow removal, which means that once streets are plowed, contracted companies have no obligation to remove the snow,” says the article, which notes that the contract was signed in 2021 by former mayor John Tory.
In 2025, Toronto’s snow operations budget was $140 million. Mayor Olivia Chow told the CBC that renegotiating the contract now would cost between $24 million and $130 million. The current contract is set to expire in 2029, at which point updates can be made.
“We’ll add in snow removal so that the contract actually works,” she said. “Can you imagine signing a contract and forgetting to add in snow removal?”
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Carly Lewis is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Wired, Interview Magazine, Pitchfork, Elle, and Maclean’s, where she is a contributing editor. Her work has been recognized by the National Magazine Awards and the Digital Publishing Awards. She reports on city life, culture—including what people do online—politics, art and crime. She received the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award for “The Murder of Ashley Wadsworth,” an investigative feature about a Canadian teenager who was killed by a man she met on social media, published by Maclean’s.
