(This op-ed by Paige MacPherson, the Alberta Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, originally appeared in the Calgary Sun on June 7, 2016.)

Calgary residents got a collective shock opening their property tax bills this week. City councillors say they’re receiving an unprecedented number of angry phone calls.

To be sure, Calgarians are taxed to the max. But the worst is yet to come.

Alberta’s incoming carbon tax is going to increase the cost of heating your home in the winter and driving your kids to school. (Because really, how dare you?) It’s going to drive up the price of nearly everything you purchase. The NDP government has finally admitted the carbon tax going to cost you more than they’d originally said.

But it doesn’t end there.

The carbon tax is likely to end up hitting your property tax bill, too.

Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi characterized the $6.5 million in anticipated carbon tax costs downloaded onto the city in 2018 alone as a “half point increase in the property tax.”

Alberta’s 61 school boards will also face hundreds of thousands of dollars in increased costs for spiking transportation and heating bills. In Edmonton, the Catholic School Board estimates the additional carbon tax cost burden will be $737,000 in 2017-18 alone.

In Calgary, the costs are anticipated to be higher than that.

Through education property taxes – the portion of your property tax bill that the province collects – or other taxes funneled to Alberta Education, or through busing fees, school boards’ increased costs will fall onto the taxpayer.

As it stands, Calgarians’ property taxes went up by an average of 6.1 per cent this year.

That substantial hike is the result of increases by both the province and the city.

City residents have made it abundantly clear that they’re being stretched to the limit, and they demand restraint from city council.

A recent City of Calgary survey showed residents overwhelmingly wanted an end to unnecessary spending and a reduction in taxes and fees wherever possible.

Yet the city is continuing to spend on things like "culturally stimulating" public art bike racks.

Some councillors have sounded the alarm, but the city just isn’t getting the message.

“We knocked ours down from 4.5 to 3.5 per cent, and the province came in at 10.2 per cent,” councillor Ray Jones told CTV News in response to an uptick in property tax appeals (up by 385 since last year). “So if you’re going to blame somebody, blame the province.”

We can’t exactly characterize that as an elected representative hearing your concerns and committing to address them.

It sounds a lot more like passing the buck.

Steadily increasing property taxes aren’t new. A recent Canadian Taxpayers Federation report shows Calgary property taxes increased nearly three times faster than the rate of inflation between 2005 and 2015. Fees increased by 181 per cent in the same period.

Calgary residents got a collective shock opening their property tax bills this week. City councillors say they’re receiving an unprecedented number of angry phone calls.

So it’s not about cost pressures the city or province must meet. The city has consistently refused to control its spending.

The province is no different. Instead of tightening their belts or reallocating spending, the Alberta government’s response to an uptick in school enrollment was to hike property taxes – a convenient approach, considering municipalities shoulder most of the blame.

Both parties deserve ‘blame’ for the property tax hikes – though in a democracy, that "blame" is what we call "accountability." Our elected representatives work for taxpayers and are expected to represent their interests in the government.

But the provincial NDP government must be held wholly accountable for the massive, multi-billion dollar carbon tax they’re forcing onto Albertans come this January, despite never having campaigned on it.

All Albertans need to be aware of the full cost of that carbon tax. If you’re peeved by your property tax bills now, brace yourselves.

Or, even better: call your MLA and tell them to reverse the carbon tax before it hits your wallet.



