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The message on the sign outside the Wurst restaurant on 4th Street S.W. is brief but no less startling for its simplicity.

The sign proclaims, as if in a plea for sanity to a city gone mad: Property taxes 2014 $74K; ’19 $208(K).

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Calgarians suffering through the arrival of their municipal tax notices this month understand the context. They, too, to varying degrees, have likely experienced significant increases that in Wurst’s case have totalled 181 per cent since 2014.

I’m a Conservative member of Parliament, and from a conservative point of view, I see no justification for why taxes should ever outpace the rate of inflation by such margins.

My personal perspective as a homeowner and small-business owner in Calgary who is being tapped for a more than 35 per cent increase this year is that our municipal councillors have utterly disconnected themselves from the reality facing the people they represent.