Property tax increase, blue line LRT funding: What Calgary gets from Alberta Budget

Calgary homeowners will be seeing an increase in their property tax this year. But, it’s not all bad news for the city, after the Alberta budget was introduced Thursday.

Property taxes in Calgary will go up six per cent, or an additional nine dollars, according to Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek. The province is hoping to use those funds for Alberta’s education system, but Gondek says the city is giving more than it will get back.

“As the economic engine of the province there has not been enough investment at this time”,” she said. “That money is being disrupted to other cities, I guess you could call it equalization, and that is not fair to our city and that is not fair to the tax payers of this city.”

However, the budget will see a decrease in income tax in the middle of the year, include $3 million for UCalgary’s Faculty of Veterinary Medicine to expand toward a full-service veterinary diagnostic laboratory, and a $5 million investment for design work with Calgary’s Blue Line LRT connection to the airport.

While Gondek says she would have liked to have seen more investments go towards the city, she is also optimistic of what the province provided.

Also feeling optimistic, the Calgary Chamber of Commerce are please with the funding for tariffs, affordable housing, and transit, but say more should have been done for small business in infrastructure.

“We’ve been advocating for the elimination of the small business tax — that was not on list — advocating for an increase in the base funding of post-secondary institution, we would like to see more investment in infrastructure,” said president and CEO, Deborah Yedlin.

The province says a deficit of $5.2 billion is protected this fiscal year with the deficits to remain through to the 2027 provincial election.