Calgary councillor says city can increase infrastructure spending to $5B without major tax hikes

City of Calgary administration says a dramatic increase in capital infrastructure spending is needed — but is it possible without major tax hikes?

According to administration officials, around $5 billion in capital spending on infrastructure is necessary next year, which is more than 30 per cent higher than the $3.8 billion earmarked for capital spending this year.

Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot, the city's longest-serving current councillor, believes that target could be reached without significant tax or rate increases — provided the city gets the right funding from elsewhere, like the private sector, the province and Ottawa.

"I don't think $5 billion is an unrealistic target as far as what our spend rate needs to be for the foreseeable future," Chabot said.

"But that incorporates so many different elements, including cost of growth, cost for new facilities like rec facilities, cost to replace aging infrastructure, the cost to maintain the roads."

Enid Slack, director of the University of Toronto's Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance, said there are multiple revenue streams municipalities can access beyond major tax increases, including user fees, borrowing money, funding from other levels of government, and dedicated tax levies.

"In Toronto, we have a 1.5 per cent increase in the levy every year for capital, and that's become something people have gotten used to," she said.

Slack said cities across the country are continuing to look for the best ways to pay for infrastructure, and that while most cities are well-managed fiscally, it can be tricky to figure out that funding at the municipal level.

"Cities' hands are tied," she said. "They don't have a lot of revenue sources available to them compared to, say, federal and provincial governments."

Chabot said he would like to see more funding allocated to the City of Calgary from other levels of government.

"We ultimately will need greater support from other orders of government to mitigate some of those challenges, so that we don't ultimately burden just our local residents to help to pay for that infrastructure," he said.

Accessing funding from Ottawa has become more challenging due to provincial legislation passed in 2024 which requires provincial approval for municipalities to reach funding agreements with the federal government, he said.

"Certainly, we could use more money from the provincial government," Chabot said, pointing to the province increasing the education property tax in last year's budget.

"I think some of those municipal property tax dollars would be better utilized to be reinvested back into our city, towards our capital infrastructure deficit," he said.