CALGARY—City council is bracing for what one councillor is calling “the most worrisome budget” from the province this week.

Alberta’s United Conservative government will release its first budget Thursday as it moves to tackle the province’s deficit. A government-appointed panel recommended last month to cut $600 million from annual spending.

Coun. Diane Colley-Urquhart, who has been in office for nearly two decades, said Tuesday that she’s concerned about the “tone” from the province regarding budget decisions that affect cities.

“I’m really scared. I’m really worried about this,” she said. “I’m picking up a sense of anger that the province has ... a sense of anger that they have toward the cities, that we’re not doing our part.”

She said that while Premier Jason Kenney is making the case for Alberta being treated unfairly under the current equalization payment formula, he should see that cities such as Calgary face a similar dilemma, since the provincial government takes a share of city property taxes and redistributes it across the province.

“The only real source of revenue that we have to run this place is through property tax. The province claws about $750 million a year out of here,” she said.

“To have people say we need to cut more here based on the equalization problem ... is a bit disingenuous, to say the least.”

Municipal Affairs Minister Kaycee Madu sent a message to Calgary council earlier this year that the city “needs to look after its own house” when it comes to financial issues. And he published an op-ed in the Calgary Herald on Tuesday suggesting that there needs to be more “political will” from officials in Edmonton and Calgary to restrain spending and limit tax increases.

Colley-Urquhart said she sees that as a sign that “the world is going to change” on budget day.

Not every member of city council is expressing the same concerns. Coun. Joe Magliocca said the city has to “live within our means,” noting Madu has the right information.

And Coun. Sean Chu said the city should focus more on “needs, not wants” when it comes to spending.

“Of course, I’m hoping there won’t be cuts coming to us, but, in reality, it’s most likely there’s going to be something,” he said. “And as a city, we have to adjust — we have to stop the wasteful spending.”

Chu and Magliocca were among the 11 council members who voted in July to approve spending $275 million to build a new $550-million arena, which council officially calls an event centre. Chu said that decision was about revitalizing the Victoria Park neighbourhood where it’s planned, and generating more income for the city.

Coun. Jeff Davison said Calgary has been moving to reduce the cost of government for some time already. City council abruptly cut $60 million from the 2019 budget in a bid to lower taxes for business owners shouldering tax weight shifting away from the downtown office towers.

“I don’t think there’s been significant consideration given to the fact that we’ve reduced our operating budget by hundreds of millions of dollars in the last couple of years,” he said. “So we’re really at a point now where we start to cut, or do we have to look at things like wages, and what does that look like as we move forward?”

Mayor Naheed Nenshi said last week that further cuts to city infrastructure funding would be a broken campaign promise, since the UCP said in its platform it would honour the former NDP government’s capital plans.

“The MacKinnon report (on Alberta’s finances) seems to imply that further cuts to city infrastructure funding is a good idea. It’s not a good idea,” he said.

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If the province reduces family and community support services funding, for example, Nenshi said, that would be a “classic example” of downloading costs for services onto municipalities.

“And it means your taxes go up to pay for something the province really ought to be paying for,” he said.

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