CitiesMatter.ca: Asking the new premier about city priorities

I write a monthly column in the Calgary Herald. Here is the full text of my September story:

Two-thirds of Albertans live in our two largest cities, and the future success of our province is inextricably linked to the success of Edmonton and Calgary. However, cities in Alberta operate under an outdated system that denies us the ability to serve our citizens as well as we should.

As we move through a leadership race that will choose a new leader this month, and then an inevitable provincial election, it is vital that Calgarians and other city dwellers make our voices heard, and understand where politicians stand on the issues that matter to us every single day — community safety, roads, transit, clean water, parks and recreation to name a few.

But too often, municipal issues are ignored or underplayed during provincial campaigns. That’s why the City of Calgary has launched Cities Matter, a new initiative to ensure that municipal issues stay front and centre in the provincial campaigns.

We’ve started by surveying the candidates for Progressive Conservative leader, one of whom will be our new premier-elect by Oct. 1 at the latest. Three of the six candidates — Alison Redford, Rick Orman and Doug Griffiths — responded in full to the survey, while Gary Mar sent a letter outlining his position on some of the issues about which we were asking. We’ve posted all of their responses and links to all their campaign websites at CitiesMatter.ca.

(Ted Morton and Doug Horner had not yet responded to our survey before my deadline for this column, but we will post their responses if and when we receive them.)

The questions and answers are instructive. Most candidates who responded agree that the legislative framework under which we operate (in which Calgary and Edmonton are governed by the exact same rules as every summer village) is outdated and needs to change. Calgary, after all, has more people than five provinces and is closing in quickly on a sixth.

While the candidates varied widely in their knowledge and understanding of civic issues, all acknowledged a need to at least review the current system. Redford and Griffiths explicitly support city charters for the big cities — an idea for which I have long advocated. Such charters, if designed correctly, will give municipal governments the flexibility we need to be able to grow in a more thoughtful way and to provide the services on which citizens rely.

Another big issue is, of course, money. Today, cities are dependent on what is one of the worst forms of taxation ever designed — the property tax. I have written at length in this space about the drawbacks of this form of taxation, but the city has no power to make changes to the taxation regime without the province’s approval.

I was pleased that all four responding candidates are open to examining how municipalities are funded.

Redford and Mar go the furthest here: Redford would dedicate resource revenues to infrastructure funding, and Mar would return the education portion of the property tax to municipalities.

Neither proposal necessarily means that there would be more money for infrastructure; Mar's idea, in particular, is explicitly revenue neutral.

What both proposals do, however, is provide more predictability, which allows cities to plan for large infrastructure projects.

For example, it's very difficult for Calgary to build the southeast LRT under the current system unless someone offers us $3 billion or so upfront; we can't borrow such a large amount of money unless we know how we will pay it back. If we knew that there was a certain amount of money coming in every year over the long term, we could take out what is essentially a mortgage to build the rail line, knowing we would be able to pay it off over time.

Both proposals do have drawbacks, though. Redford's allows for some predictability, but if the price of oil and gas or demand for the commodities fall suddenly, our revenues would as well.

Mar's idea, on the other hand, allows for a great deal of predictability, but this is precisely because the property tax is so unfair. If you lose your job, you still have to pay property tax, for example. The proposal, therefore, has the impact of making the city even more reliant on this tax. So, while the idea is welcomed, we would still need a broader discussion on tax reform.

There are a number of other issues in the survey - safety and policing, homelessness, the southwest ring road and the Calgary Cultural Campus, for example. I encourage all Albertans - whether they are planning to vote in the leadership race or not - to visit CitiesMatter.ca and add their voice to this discussion about our future.

- Mayor Naheed Nenshi