Genevieve Simms

Calgarians are up in arms over the city’s proposed 25 per cent tax hike over the next three years. The pitchforks are being sharpened. The fiscal hawks on city council are circling, and the doves are nowhere to seen. Before we join the lynch mob, though, we need to better understand why costs seem to be spiralling out of control. We just might find that we are barking up the wrong tree.

With Calgary’s expanding population and economy, the cost of providing infrastructure has been booming, too. To provide adequate services for the city’s increasing population, Calgary needs to hire more police officers, firefighters and EMS workers. It also needs to increase transit infrastructure, build roads, recreation centres and parks. Collecting property taxes and user fees, the city has been unable to keep up with this demand. The city estimates its infrastructure deficit to be a staggering $8.2 billion. In other words, $8.2 billion is needed just to meet the minimum amenity standards of communities in Calgary.

To keep up with services and infrastructure, the city has proposed to increase taxes. In response, the media and Calgarians have been howling and are particularly incensed over $165 million in funding for the arts and $25 million for two pedestrian bridges. (The latter, however, is not city money, but infrastructure funding provided by the province’s Municipal Sustainability Initiative.) In an uncertain economic time, many see these expenses as unnecessary. Thus, eight fiscal hawks on city council (Ric McIver, John Mar, Andre Chabot, Jim Stevenson, Dale Hodges, Ray Jones, Joe Connelly and Diane Colley-Urquhart) are banding together to go over the budget line by line to cut out the fat.

While appearing to take a courageous stand in the war on waste, these eight city councillors are just posturing. Pretending to be fiscally disciplined, these classic conservatives, in reality, are spending like drunken sailors. Blinded by their conservative ideology, they are trying to cut out the fat, when the problem is with the meat and potatoes.

The myopic fiscal hawks talk big about getting tough on taxes. Don’t buy into this for two reasons. The first is urban sprawl. The estimated cost to build the infrastructure in new city suburbs is $1.15 billion a year. Much of this is built despite the fact that existing infrastructure in other areas of the city is not being fully utilized. It is apparent that an astronomical amount of money is being wasted.

It is estimated that to decrease taxes by one per cent you need to cut $8.3 million out of the budget. If you decreased urban sprawl even slightly and saved just $69 million annually out of the city’s 10-year projected $11.5 billion suburban infrastructure costs, the increase in our taxes over the next three years would be zero. Eliminate more and our taxes will decrease.

The second glaring example is our transportation system. Transit passes are scheduled to increase from $75 to $90 a month. Yes, the cost of the service that gets you there real slow is increasing. The city is proposing to increase the cost of this efficient and low-emission-producing mode of transport. This does not make sense.

User fees cover over half of the operating costs of public transit. What this means is that the other half is subsidized by taxpayers, even those who do not take transit. While public transit relies heavily on user fees, our road system does not. Because roads are 100 per cent subsidized by taxpayers, the cost to drive is artificially low. This is one reason why so many people drive, clogging our roads. Why do public transit users, many who are low-income, have to pay user fees while drivers do not?

Why aren’t there headlines screaming about this? Instead, the phony hawks on city council keep pecking on items worth a few million, when items costing billions of dollars go unexamined. There is a reason why their feathers aren’t being ruffled. Their voters benefit by not paying the true cost of suburban living and car commuting. It is as if these are birthrights. The people who benefit the most from this setup, and are the most responsible for the budget escalation, are being held the least accountable. Worst of all, they are scapegoating the arts community and people who want to beautify the city.

By not pricing roads and suburban homes properly, we are misallocating a horrific amount of resources. We are allowing ourselves to continue to be wasteful, to pollute and to contribute to global warming. We cannot continue to push costs onto other people and future generations. It needs to end now.

To rectify this, we need pricing that reflects the real cost of suburban housing and roads. If the real cost of new suburban housing is reflected in the price, more will choose to live in existing neighbourhoods with existing infrastructure. New suburban homeowners should pay significantly higher property taxes, and this money should be used to subsidize the price of higher density developments within the city. User fees on roads could be used to fund a public transit system that gets you there real quick. These fees could also be used to lower fares to increase the incentive to use the service and also to make it affordable for everyone. Depending on the amount of the user fee, some of this revenue could even be used to lower taxes further.

The result would be a more inclusive and sustainable city with lower taxes. That is something to get excited about.

David Wilson is an activist who believes in a more equitable and sustainable Calgary. He works for a community economic development organization.