The Government of Alberta has announced a new bill that, if passed, would tie the infrastructure funding for the province’s two largest cities to provincial revenue.

The City Charters Fiscal Framework Act would replace the Municipality Sustainability Initiative in 2022 and would see Calgary and Edmonton split $500 million in the first year. In the years that followed, the two cities would receive funding based on provincial revenue.

“We know that in order to support continued growth, Alberta’s two biggest cities need permanent, predictable funding for their local infrastructure priorities,” said Shaye Anderson, Alberta’s Minister of Municipal Affairs in a statement released in unison with the funding announcement.

Mayor Naheed Nenshi says, given the current state of Alberta’s economy, the framework of the funding plan does not bode well for Calgary.

“We share in the downside and we should share in the upside,” said Nenshi. “One of the challenges with this is there is a lot of downside. We don’t actually return to 2017 levels of funding until the early 2030’s. It will actually mean that capital will be very, very constrained in the City of Calgary for a long time.”

“It means that it will be more difficult for the provincial government to make ad hoc changes in the funding that the cities get. That’s something that we’ve been pushing for for a long time. I want to be clear though, this is a huge cut.”

Nenshi says the two cities will not reap the full fixed percentages for years.

“Ultimately, in the 2030 timeframe, it will be a fixed percentage of provincial revenues. However, the province, in an abundance of caution, are phasing that in over time so that the growth piece will be only half of the provincial growth for the first few years, then it will grow by a small percentage in years after that until it actually achieves the point where it is 100 per cent of provincial growth but that’s not for a long time.”

Under the proposal, Calgary and Edmonton would also split $400 million each year, beginning in 2027 at the completion of the current transit funding agreement, for long term transit funding.