Who pays when the basement floods?

The sewers under the older parts of Toronto carry stormwater and sanitary waste in the same pipe, and were sized for a city of about half the current population. In a heavy downpour they can reach capacity in twenty minutes, and the path of least resistance for what is left is up through a floor drain into somebody’s basement.

That happened to more than a thousand homes in the storms of 2024. The city’s response, in force since May 1, is to nearly double its Basement Flooding Protection Subsidy from $3,400 to $6,650 a property for backwater valves, sump pumps and pipe disconnections, backdated to work done since November. The money comes from the stormwater charge, which is levied on impermeable surface, which is why the owners of big parking lots called it a parking-lot tax, and everyone else called it a rain tax, when it came in.

The subsidy still assumes the homeowner pays first. The next storm will ask whether that is the right assumption.

Sources: City of Toronto, the subsidy nearly doubles from May 1 · CBC, treading water · Ontario Local Guide, the 2026 subsidy explained