City Touts Its Credit Ratings
The purpose of this memo is to inform Members of Council of the 2025 City of Ottawa’s credit ratings issued by Moody’s Investor Services (Moody’s) and Standard & Poor’s Rating Services (S&P).
The City’s credit rating is an important factor in the City’s financials, including the ability to issue debt and access lower long-term borrowing costs for key investments. Moody’s and S&P use varying methodologies and analyze both financial and non-financial information to provide a neutral third-party assessment of the City’s ability to meet its financial obligations.
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This is a release from the City of Ottawa.
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In 2025, the City maintained a high credit rating from both agencies. Moody’s affirmed the City’s Aaa rating, which is the highest possible ranking, and S&P affirmed a very strong rating of AA+. The agencies recognized the City’s robust financial management, revenue growth, budgetary performance, and strong liquidity position.
There are other critical components of the agencies assessment, including the City’s debt, reserves and Long-Term Financial Plans. The City carefully monitors its debt through the City’s Long-Range Financial Plans to ensure the ongoing financial well-being of the City is maintained in accordance with its fiscal framework principles. This commitment has resulted in one of the lowest debt servicing to property tax ratios among Canada’s largest municipalities.
The City also has a low debt to asset ratio, which places the organization in a favourable position to pay its debt obligations. In 2024, the City’s long-term debt represented 10.8 per cent of the value of the City’s tangible capital assets. From a taxpayer’s perspective, that is equivalent to a $54,000 mortgage on a $500,000 home.
The City continues to maintain healthy reserves through proactive and effective measures guided by Long-Range Financial Plans, the Fiscal Framework, and the Reserve Fund Management Policy.
If you have any questions, please connect with Isabelle Jasmin.
Thank you,
Cyril Rogers
General Manager and Chief Financial Officer
Finance and Corporate Services
For You:
Look, Someone’s Dressed Up As The Mayor
The Office Is Dead: RICHARD FLORIDA
Chocolate Cake For Breakfast: PATTON
City Negligent On Saving Money: BENN
Monsters Walk Among Us: PATTON
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Because municipalities are the only level of government able to tax property value, pretty much every municipality has a top credit rating. Plus the province band dates that that cannot exceed a certain value of revenues, I believe it’s 4%. I’m sure Mr Benn could provide the exact formula. The fact is that this is just smoke and mirrors. Another way of writing it is that because we can tax the crap out of you, we have a high credit ratings
@C from Kanata – More likely to show that the city can easily afford to borrow money to finance Lansdowne 2.0. Because, after all, no one remembers the mistakes S&P and Moody’s in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis.
A sharp pencil in anybody’s hand can make even the most accurate figures look good or bad. Watch what staff do to skew outcomes and then once the cloud from the buffalo passing has settled see what the truth of reality costs YOU. Prime example LRT! Not on time and never on budget! Landsdowne waterfall 1 has to be rewritten into 2 so the OSEG can make a profit at whose expense?