Last summer the UCP government launched a lavish campaign to attract residents of Toronto and Vancouver to our province. Panoramic advertisements of Calgary and Edmonton landmarks and the Rocky Mountains enticed riders at Toronto’s busiest subway station with messaging that spoke directly to their innermost worries. Touting a higher standard of living at an affordable cost, the “Alberta is Calling” campaign emphasized some of the better features of our province’s largest cities. Yet when it comes to actually enabling the success of these cities in the new economy, the UCP government isn’t being much help.
In fact, the capacity of Alberta’s big cities to attract talent and investment is being actively undermined by our provincial government. This has become a point of contention between the provincial government and the two city councils, the latter of which were elected in the fall
of 2021.
New Calgary mayor Jyoti Gondek, for example, announced on her first day on the job that the city would declare a climate emergency. Then-premier Jason Kenney characterized this as a “peculiar priority.” Nonetheless a month later Calgary’s city council voted 13–2 to declare a climate emergency. Gondek says that such a declaration—aside from acknowledging the seriousness of climate change—attracts people and businesses. “I look around the world and I see that access to capital hinges on saying, ‘We understand that this is an issue and we will do better,’” she says. “It made absolute sense to make that declaration.”
But this motion didn’t endear her to the UCP government. “You can’t be a supporter of the energy sector and declare a climate emergency,” Gondek recalls being told. “[But] I found it fascinating that they were creating this false dichotomy, because the industry itself has been transitioning.”
Calgary’s declaration, meanwhile, was hardly a novelty. Two years earlier the House of Commons had voted to declare a national climate emergency. And Edmonton was quick to follow suit. Indeed for many years now Alberta’s capital city has been taking concrete steps towards climate action, first by creating an Energy Transition Strategy in 2015, and then a Climate Change Adaptation Plan in 2018. Like Calgary’s declaration, Edmonton’s plan proposed that “increasing resilience can help attract businesses, talent and residents.” It added that climate action “lowers social and GDP costs and improves investor confidence and credit ratings.” In so doing, the plan spoke directly to the objectives of Kenney’s “Alberta is Calling” campaign—to attract more residents.
Yet the aspirations of both cities have only created resentment in the provincial government. “We haven’t had a lot of success with the [UCP government],” says Ashley Salvador, Ward Métis councillor. “In the absence of provincial leadership, the city has had to step up.” Given the nature of the municipal–provincial relationship, however, cities are extremely limited in what they can do on their own.
Cities in Canada carry ever-increasing responsibility. Since the 1990s this has expanded beyond the delivery of basic services such as road repairs, wastewater management and policing, to bigger challenges such as attracting workers and businesses, tackling structural inequity (e.g., racial biases) and reducing carbon emissions. The implications of a more complex role—extra responsibilities come with extra costs—have complicated the relationship between provincial and municipal governments, as cities raise funds primarily through property taxes and are prevented by provincial law from levying other taxes or running deficits. So, for cities to go beyond their mandate as “service corporations,” they need funding from senior levels of government.
“When a senior order of government decides to offload responsibility to somebody else, [that somebody else] generally becomes the municipal government,” Gondek says. “So we have to take on these wicked problems, try to find a way forward as a local government. But frankly we can’t do it without the provincial and federal governments helping us.”
Jack Lucas, an associate professor of political science at the University of Calgary, says provincial governments tend to be more conservative than those in cities, and the gap only grows when cities adopt new responsibilities. “Over the last 20 years cities have taken on new meaning in our political and policy debates,” he says. This creates “a source of real frustration for municipal councils… [they] are trying to do big things.”
And Lucas says things have lately gotten testier. “There’s a difference between the inevitable ongoing tensions of multi-level governance and the deeper tensions we’ve been seeing in Alberta,” he says. “Since the 1980s, we’ve been having these ongoing discussions about giving additional powers and authority to the cities of Edmonton and Calgary.” Not that long ago things looked to be improving. The Progressive Conservative government of Jim Prentice supported new powers in the form of city charters, signing a framework agreement with Edmonton and Calgary in 2014. During the NDP government era, 2015–2019, the two cities worked with the province to create the charters, culminating in the City Charters Fiscal Framework Act. The municipal affairs minister at the time, Danielle Larivee, said, “Our goal is to help Calgary and Edmonton address climate change, plan smarter communities and work more efficiently on issues from tax assessments to parking tickets.”
The agreements came into effect in 2018, granting Edmonton and Calgary access to a reliable source of provincial funding and giving them more authority.
But just months into their mandate the UCP government under Jason Kenney eliminated charters, scrapping most of the progress that had been made. The cities were back to being supplicants to the province. This reversal of fortunes renewed frustrations leading up to the 2021 municipal elections. “The whole purpose of city charters was to build a stronger partnership [between] big cities and the provincial government,” says Edmonton mayor Amarjeet Sohi. “They needed to be strengthened, not weakened.”
In essence, instead of enabling cities to meet new challenges and demands, the Kenney government tied their hands and added to their financial burdens. Calgary and Edmonton are now set to receive even less provincial support for infrastructure, with the Local Government Fiscal Framework expected to reduce funding for cities by nearly 40 per cent when it comes into effect in 2024. And since the release of its first budget in 2020 the UCP government has slashed budget items that would have allowed Calgary and Edmonton to improve services in the areas of affordable housing, health and social services.
Furthermore, “the UCP actually increased the taxes it drew from municipalities,” says Lori Williams, a professor of political science at Mount Royal University. Indeed, in 2021 the provincial government announced a 1.5 per cent increase to the education property tax requisition, an amount municipalities collect in the form of property taxes and then send to the province to fund the operational costs of public schools.
In Calgary and Edmonton, this tax represents about 30 per cent of property taxes. As the needs and responsibilities of Alberta’s largest cities have grown, mayors in both places have insisted that Calgary and Edmonton be allowed to keep this revenue. Instead, both cities have now had to increase property tax rates just to cover their operational costs. “The provincial government walked away from their responsibility, downloading more to [us],” says Sohi. “It really put a lot of pressure on the local resources.”
Adds Lucas: “If [citizens] ask a municipal government to be responsible for something, and they’re not able to pay for it, that’s a recipe for conflict.”
Gondek and Sohi and councillors in both cities insist that their mandate from citizens is not only to provide basic services but also to prepare their communities for a lower-carbon future. “The energy transition represents the single best economic opportunity of our time,” Edmonton’s Ashley Salvador says. “We need the foresight to know that investing in climate action means attracting and incubating the next generation of energy companies, it means green jobs and economic growth, and it also means remaining competitive in a changing global economy.”
A 2020 poll by the Pembina Institute found that 68 per cent of Albertans support taking action to reduce carbon emissions. According to a survey prepared for the City of Edmonton, three out of four Edmontonians believe climate change requires action. Over 60 per cent of Calgarians report being concerned about fossil-fuel dependence, high energy consumption and air pollution.
“City charters needed to be strengthened, not weakened,” says mayor Amarjeet Sohi.
Last fall, Edmonton’s city council voted for a 5 per cent property tax increase over the next four years in support of a budget that includes significant investments in green initiatives. In Calgary property taxes are slated to rise by 4.4 per cent over the same period. In the latter city, however, only a small share of the budget—$3.8-million annually, and a one-time $44-million infusion—will be devoted to following up on council’s 2021 emergency declaration and “to set the foundation for work required to achieve 2050 climate targets.”
According to Noel Keough, professor emeritus at the University of Calgary’s School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, investing in housing and transportation are key ways for cities to reduce carbon emissions. As Keough outlines in his book Sustainability Matters, a just society is a sustainable society: ensuring equitable access to housing and public transit gets more citizens to reduce carbon emissions. But despite the evidence, “[Provincial] government funding hasn’t been forthcoming in support of climate action,” Keough says.
The fact that Calgary and Edmonton already have more than half of Alberta’s population—even as the UCP government and municipal governments alike try to attract even more residents—means they’re also more vulnerable to the consequences of a changing climate. As global temperatures continue to rise, extreme weather events will become more commonplace. Alberta is expected to see increased risks of drought, forest fires and flooding. The effects of climate change have already intensified in Alberta, as two of the costliest natural disasters in Canada’s history took place in Calgary: the 2013 flood and the 2020 hailstorm.
“We need to take this crisis very, very seriously,” Sohi says. “Without municipalities’ participation, [Canada] will not be able to meet our climate targets. We can reduce emissions by [incentivizing] people to use sustainable modes of transportation,” Sohi says. “And the integration of land-use planning and transportation planning, where people live and how people move, are directly linked to how much pollution and emissions they create. The role of cities is crucial,” he adds. “That’s where most people live [and] where economic activity is generated.”
In the face of the UCP government’s lack of support, Calgary and Edmonton are attempting their own strategies. Edmonton’s adaptation plan outlines a series of actions that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make the city carbon-neutral (emitting and absorbing equal amounts of carbon) by 2050. In addition, Edmonton’s climate and resilience strategy has driven the creation of an energy incentive program to upgrade buildings, expand the city’s bike lane network and LRT system, and implement a carbon budget. Carbon budgeting is a new field that provides information on the greenhouse-emissions impact of each budget request. Edmonton is the first municipality in Canada to incorporate a carbon budget into its financial budgeting process. But curbing emissions isn’t cheap. The city estimates that these initiatives over the next decade will add about $24-billion.
Calgary’s updated climate strategy aims to reach net-zero by 2050 at a total cost of $87-billion. Over its first three years the plan calls for Calgary to retrofit existing buildings and improve low-carbon transportation options such as walking, cycling and transit.
The success of both strategies, however, relies on the availability of stable, consistent and sufficient funding from other levels of government. “The less power and money that municipalities have, and the more control is usurped by the province, the more challenging it’s going to be for [local] officials,” MRU’s Williams says. Indeed, Edmonton’s first carbon budget, published in December 2022, shows that without significant investment from the province the city won’t meet its net-zero target by 2050. (Calgary is expected to release its first carbon budget later this year.)
On top of these and other climate issues, Gondek and Sohi have contended with the effects of a relentless pandemic, growing mental health and addictions crises, and a steep increase in the cost of living. “The provincial government hasn’t given Edmonton the support it deserves,” Sohi says. “We want to work with them based on data and on good information to correct those inequities.”
Last year, for example, Edmonton requested roughly $60-million to operate existing supportive housing and for money to build more housing. Months later the city received $12-million from the province for mental health supports and $9-million for more emergency shelter spaces. After the province released its 2023 budget, Sohi noted the dearth of provincial support for efforts to address homelessness and addiction. The provincial government “ha[s] not fully understood the gravity of the problem that Edmonton is facing,” Sohi told Global News in March.
Similarly, mayor Gondek has been vocal about the need of increased provincial support to revitalize the city’s downtown, build more affordable housing and expand the city’s mass transit system. Gondek said she was disappointed that the UCP government’s 2023 budget offered zero money for downtown revitalization efforts. “But we’ve had some wins too,” she says. These include some provincial funding last fall to address homelessness and public safety issues, and a pledge in early 2023 that a new fiscal framework could soon see cities receive more funding.
In some respects, both mayors and councils see their roles as having been reduced to solving problems created or exacerbated by provincial underfunding. “We need all sectors and all orders of government to come along to meet our goals,” says councillor Salvador. “There’s a sense that we’re putting out fires… filling in gaps in the absence of provincial leadership.”
“It’s quite problematic for municipal governments when they need help from [other] levels of government,” says MRU’s Lori Williams. “And now it seems Danielle Smith sees her path to victory in the 2023 election in running against Justin Trudeau and resisting collaboration with him—whereas municipalities absolutely need to work with both levels of government.” In other words, the nearly 2.5 million Albertans living in Calgary and Edmonton are vulnerable not only to legislation that diminishes cities and to the impacts of a changing climate but also to the political whims of a combative premier.
While the provincial election is underway, the mayors of Calgary and Edmonton have an additional challenge, Williams says: to remain neutral while also advocating for their cities. “[They have to] challenge the provincial government to do better for municipalities, but also remain neutral enough that they can work with whoever is elected.”
Last November Smith wrote a letter to Mayor Gondek suggesting her government would be interested in expanding Calgary’s LRT to reach the city’s airport—a plan so far stalled for a lack of funding. In February the provincial budget allocated $5-million towards engineering work for the airport link. Some observers doubt the premier’s commitment to seeing the project through, as earlier she had expressed concerns about the “high costs” of Calgary’s much-needed Green Line, a sticking point in the Alberta–Calgary relationship since the UCP government took over.
Considering Smith’s previous assertion that “Edmonton’s a bit ahead of Calgary” on building LRT, the provincial budget’s allocation of $760-million over three years for Edmonton LRT projects was unexpected. Moreover, the 2023 budget allocated more capital grants and investment to Edmonton than to Calgary—$3.2-billion and $2.9 billion, respectively. Critics, however, pointed out that the sudden funding boost came in an election year, with the UCP and NDP polling in a dead heat and every seat in Edmonton and Calgary being critical. And despite the LRT funding, other key priorities in Edmonton remain underfunded, according to Sohi, a situation that follows a familiar pattern. “The discrepancies aren’t caused by the UCP government,” the mayor says. “They’re caused by how Edmonton has been seen by provincial governments over the decades. And the discrepancies have grown.”
Political biases and whims of provincial politicians are yet one more reason, Lucas says, that our biggest cities need access to reliable, predictable and stable funding.
“Cities’ ‘wicked problems’ require provincial and federal help,” Mayor Jyoti Gondek says.
Meanwhile Premier Smith’s Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act could worsen cities’ already dicey predicament. As the chasm between the two most senior levels of government—provincial and federal—grows, the tensions between Alberta’s largest cities and the province could deteriorate even further. “Municipalities are being put into a position where their own status isn’t entirely clear,” Williams says about Premier Smith’s Sovereignty Act and the lack of consultation with municipalities during its creation. “Their relationship with the provincial government could be soured by accepting funds or programs that are being directed by the federal government.”
The hostility between the federal and provincial governments has already taken a toll in Alberta’s cities. Provincial budget cuts in 2022, for example, caused Calgary to miss out on federal funding to cover Calgary Transit’s operational costs.
But Gondek’s primary concern with Smith’s Sovereignty Act is that it could jeopardize what autonomy cities still have. “What worries me is the availability of that option to tell us what to do,” she says. “This puts us in a position of conflict, because if we’re required [by the Sovereignty Act] not to follow federal law, or legislation, or practices, and we’re required to do something different, then we’re stuck in the middle, and nothing good comes out of that situation.”
In March the UCP government announced that its “Alberta is Calling” campaign would expand, from Toronto and Vancouver subway stations to billboards in smaller cities, including Hamilton, Windsor and Sudbury in Ontario and Moncton and Halifax in the Maritimes. But if our government is serious about attracting people to move to this province and then stick around, empowering Alberta’s cities is essential. “We are the level of government that is closest to the people, we’re on the ground, in the community, and often the most accessible,” Salvador says. “When people see those challenges on their doorstep, local government is the go-to… [even as] oftentimes the jurisdiction and responsibility lies with the province.”
Williams says, “At all levels of government, representatives need to remember they’ve been elected by voters [who] want them to work together to find solutions to the problems
we face.”
After this spring’s election our biggest cities must receive a greater level of provincial support. There is, after all, only one taxpayer. “The powers of municipalities to manage matters of great concern to their constituents have been significantly undermined both by Jason Kenney and now by Danielle Smith,” Williams says. “If that continues, it’s going to become more challenging for civic officials to effectively represent their constituents.”
Ximena González is a writer and editor in Calgary. Her work also appears in The Globe and Mail, The Tyee and The Sprawl.
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