Rebel News Podcast - Outrageous： Calgary's Mayor Nenshi raises taxes during COVID-19 crisis

00:00:00.100 Hello Rebels, you're listening to a free audio-only recording of my weekly Wednesday night show, The Gun Show.

00:00:05.980 Tonight my guest is William Macbeth from Save Calgary and we are discussing the catastrophic property tax hike levied on Calgarians

00:00:14.880 in the middle of the worst economic downturn in about a hundred years.

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00:01:04.620 Justin Trudeau isn't the only liberal politician raising taxes during the pandemic.

00:01:23.800 I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed and you're watching The Gunn Show.

00:01:26.320 Calgary is experiencing between 13 and 25% unemployment, depending on how you measure it.

00:01:49.040 Cowtown's being hammered by low oil prices, lack of pipelines and the carbon tax, as well as the coronavirus lockdown.

00:01:56.700 However, just like Trudeau, Mayor Naheed Nenshi is raising taxes.

00:02:01.220 In some instances, people are complaining of a 20% hike on their property taxes.

00:02:06.640 The city is seeing a drop in, quote, revenue and fees caused in part by city-run places being closed to ward off the spread of the coronavirus.

00:02:14.460 Once again, though, the city has come knocking, looking for more money from the embattled and, in some instances, unemployed and broke taxpayers to pay for services and infrastructure they have not been allowed to use for about the last 90 days.

00:02:30.680 The city, though, they're not going to be cutting spending and putting some big projects on ice.

00:02:35.340 Oh, no, they're coming right back to the trough.

00:02:38.160 It's crazy and inhumane and it's causing rightful outrage.

00:02:42.880 You see, the cupboards in Calgary are bare.

00:02:45.020 So joining me tonight to talk about the lack of restraint at Calgary City Council while the citizens of Calgary are doing their best to watch their nickels and dimes is William Macbeth from Save Calgary.

00:03:05.340 Joining me now from his home in Calgary is my friend William Macbeth from Save Calgary.

00:03:16.680 And it's been a long time since you've been on the show because of this horrible coronavirus lockdown.

00:03:23.480 So there's a lot to talk about.

00:03:25.240 A lot of things have happened in Calgary, even though it seems like there's not a lot happening in the world.

00:03:31.500 Let's go back a little bit to the $235 million budget shortfall in the city of Calgary.

00:03:44.940 So that's, you know, a quarter of a billion dollars.

00:03:48.340 And so naturally, the solution to this is not to cut spending, rain in spending, rain in pensions down at City Hall, but rather to raise taxes on homeowners during probably the worst economic crisis in 100 years.

00:04:08.160 No, you're absolutely right.

00:04:10.480 What's interesting, of course, is that the economic crisis didn't start in Calgary in March of this year.

00:04:17.580 We have been in an economic crisis for several years now.

00:04:22.260 The vacancy in our downtown office towers, higher unemployment, all of these things have been in place since at least 2015.

00:04:30.880 But the city really hasn't changed its spending behavior since then.

00:04:35.400 And even in the last budgeting cycle, which happened in November and then December of last year, so pretty recently, no concerted effort was made to actually reduce spending between this year and last year.

00:04:49.440 They claim that they have cut spending, but how the city cuts spending is different than how you or I cut spending.

00:04:55.000 We look at cutting spending, if we spent $100 on groceries last month, and now we're spending $75 on this month, we would consider that a cut.

00:05:03.560 But for the city, if they spent $200 last month and they plan to spend $300 this month, and now they're only going to spend $250, they call that a cut, even though it's still a earning increase.

00:05:15.560 So that's kind of the situation Calgary found itself in, is when COVID hit, some of their tax revenues dried up, there were fewer people taking transit, there was less money coming in from different fees, surcharges, and levies.

00:05:29.000 And as a result, the city found itself in a budget crunch.

00:05:31.880 And they did what they always did.

00:05:33.120 They passed that on to taxpayers in the form of higher taxes.

00:05:36.300 Yeah, and I've been looking at some of the tax hikes, and there are homeowners, homeowners who, you know, could be unemployed.

00:05:46.960 I think the latest numbers I've seen are like one in five people are unemployed right now, completely unemployed.

00:05:54.320 And those folks, some of them are getting like a 20% hike in their municipal property taxes in Calgary.

00:06:03.080 That's absolutely outrageous.

00:06:04.740 How does Menchi expect the taxpayer to bear this sort of tax hike?

00:06:10.720 Well, we're actually not 100% sure what's in the mayor's head right now.

00:06:15.760 The mayor sent home a piece of propaganda with everybody's tax bill this year.

00:06:20.760 He sent a letter, and in that letter, he makes a lot of claims.

00:06:25.220 He claims that spending has remained flat, even though it hasn't.

00:06:29.820 He's claimed that most people saw very modest increases in their taxes, which we know isn't true based on all of the people who have come forward talking about their outrageous tax bills.

00:06:41.660 He's claimed that the city has made cut $740 million in savings, even though spending is at its highest level ever in the history of the city of Calgary.

00:06:51.920 So it's possible the mayor just doesn't realize we're having a problem because he's so out of touch with what's been happening to Calgary homeowners.

00:07:01.540 But certainly the idea that people are facing these small tax increases is absolute baloney.

00:07:08.460 People are getting hammered by higher taxes, and they're getting hammered in two ways.

00:07:13.760 They're getting hammered because taxes are just going up, and they're getting hammered because they're shifting more of the tax burden onto homeowners and away from businesses.

00:07:22.420 We lobbied that if they were going to do this, all they should do is cut business taxes.

00:07:28.060 They should reduce the tax burden on businesses, but city council decided instead to put that burden on the backs of homeowners.

00:07:35.740 And you're absolutely right, many of whom are really struggling during this tough economic time as businesses have been closed down and people have been laid off.

00:07:42.780 Yeah, I see a real crisis that's going to happen for homeowners and specifically those who have secondary residences that they're renting out because now they're not working and their renters aren't working and property taxes have increased on both locations.

00:08:02.800 And yet there's very little reprieve for these people, and I worry about the number of foreclosures that are heading towards Calgary.

00:08:12.360 I saw some numbers today in black locks.

00:08:15.500 CMHC says there won't even be close to a recovery until 2023, and yet Nenshi's raising taxes right now.

00:08:25.660 I can think of two governments that have raised taxes during this pandemic.

00:08:30.740 One is Justin Trudeau on April 1st, raising the carbon tax 50%, which also hits Calgarians, but then Nenshi also raising municipal property taxes.

00:08:41.760 It's truly outrageous.

00:08:43.260 You're right, but it's absolutely par for the course.

00:08:46.200 Since 2010, Calgary's property taxes have increased by 85%.

00:08:51.000 Holy.

00:08:52.120 And they show absolutely no sign of abating.

00:08:55.120 And the claims from the city, things like, oh, we've kept property taxes below population plus inflation, well, that's just not true.

00:09:03.720 Since 2015, I did the math.

00:09:05.980 Population plus inflation came up to roughly 19%, and Calgary's municipal taxes have gone up 24%.

00:09:11.920 So they're charging significantly higher tax rates, tax increases than property plus inflation.

00:09:17.600 So, no, if you think about it, if your income is stagnant or severely decreased from what it normally is because of this, you don't have any more money to go off and pay for higher taxes.

00:09:30.380 There's just no money left for you to do that.

00:09:33.160 So you're either going to have to cut expenses somewhere else, you're going to have to maybe cut your health care expenses, cut your food, cut whatever you can, or you're going to just have to sell some of your possessions or even give up your house if you can't afford to pay those property tax hikes.

00:09:50.500 And when we say massive, in some cases, people are seeing 20, 30, or 40% increases in their tax bills, and that translates to hundreds of extra dollars per month in property tax hikes.

00:10:03.460 So these are not these small tax increases that the mayor keeps trying to sell Calgarians through his propaganda.

00:10:09.040 Now, speaking of propaganda, I suppose one of the pesky conservatives at Calgary City Council, Jeremy Farkas, he did a rebuttal letter to the letter that Mayor Nenshi sent out to Calgary homeowners explaining why he needed to gouge more money out of them, despite the fact that services are not going up in Calgary.

00:10:33.720 Farkas went through and, I guess, point by point, kind of debunked everything the mayor was saying to sell the property tax hikes.

00:10:46.540 By the way, that mail-out from the mayor seems pretty political, and yet it seems he's using city resources to do that.

00:10:56.840 No, well, you're absolutely right.

00:10:58.220 You know, this is the mayor who's never shied away from spending the taxpayers' money on whatever he thinks is important.

00:11:06.440 I think, you know, when State Calgary went through the mayor's letter, we found at least five or six just identifiably false statements included within it.

00:11:19.360 So, you know, you think to yourself, it's bad enough that the mayor is using our tax dollars to pay for this propaganda, but he's actually using our tax dollars to send out a misleading, you know, some might even say false letter to every homeowner along with their property tax bill.

00:11:37.640 And it would be one thing if maybe city council recognized there was a problem, but the city council doesn't recognize that they are still firing the spending on all cylinders.

00:11:50.480 They are spending money at an unprecedented rate right now, and they're about to ramp that up even further if all of the proposed projects they're considering are given the green light to go ahead.

00:12:01.200 It's frightening. Now, I'm glad you mentioned these proposed projects because the green line.

00:12:12.160 Let's talk about the green line. Maybe give a little history of the green line so people really understand what a boondoggle this is.

00:12:19.720 And then we can talk about, you know, when the mayor says there's no efficiencies to be found and we just can't cut spending.

00:12:27.920 You have this behemoth of the green line that has just been a money pit since it started.

00:12:34.740 Why isn't the city looking at doing something about rolling back the green line just to save money during this pandemic?

00:12:43.140 Well, it's a very valid point, and it's one of the issues that we've been deeply concerned about.

00:12:50.100 The green line has been around for about 10 years as an idea. It's been through a dozen iterations.

00:12:56.780 It's seen almost every one of its senior managers walk off the job at one point or another.

00:13:01.760 It has been redesigned fully, at least on three separate occasions.

00:13:06.940 But it's undead. It's the LRT line that keeps going.

00:13:11.380 And here's where we're at right now.

00:13:14.120 We have a proposal to build about half the original green line.

00:13:18.660 It's going to run from just north of the river to somewhere in the mid-south.

00:13:23.880 And the original green line proposal called for transit and LRT service to go to the far, far, far north of Calgary and the far, far, far south,

00:13:31.840 basically where people live in suburbs and in emerging communities.

00:13:35.980 But they can't afford that.

00:13:37.900 They're going to spend more than $5 billion to build less than half the original size of the green line.

00:13:44.700 And even though people have raised so many red flags about this project, about the cost,

00:13:50.760 about the technical complexity of the project and how it seems needlessly complex at points,

00:13:56.600 there are simply those on city council and, you know, the special interests who say, 0.95

00:14:02.560 damn, whatever the torpedoes are, we're going to build this come hell or high water. 0.96

00:14:07.360 But this isn't like some other projects. 1.00

00:14:09.940 This project is so big and so expensive, it risks Calgary's financial viability.

00:14:15.840 If this project goes off the rails, it could literally bankrupt our city.

00:14:21.100 And yet they seem to just be wanting to push this through regardless of everyone's concerns.

00:14:27.820 And let's, you know, there's a few things that we find interesting.

00:14:30.900 First of all, they haven't laid a single kilometer of track, single meter of track in this green line.

00:14:37.060 Yet they've already spent more than $500 million on it.

00:14:40.760 So why do I think this green line is probably going to go ahead?

00:14:44.200 Because they've already spent half a billion dollars on it.

00:14:47.320 So if they stop now, that's just, you know, in their mind, they've wasted half a billion dollars.

00:14:53.220 Second of all, it is still one continuous line with an underground,

00:14:58.780 extensive underground tunnel section through downtown Calgary.

00:15:02.480 There's no reason why this has to be one continuous line.

00:15:05.860 Who are these people who need to go from the far north to the deep south of Calgary?

00:15:11.660 There's, I'm sure there's some, but there's very few.

00:15:15.320 What people need are ways of getting from the suburbs into and out of downtown.

00:15:19.580 That's where most people use our transit system for.

00:15:22.660 So the idea that it has to be one continuous line is just this vanity exercise on the part of city councillors.

00:15:30.860 So we have so many issues about this and it's coming up for a vote, a final vote of council in about a week.

00:15:37.900 And we're worried that council is going to put us on the hook for a project in the middle of an economic crisis that we simply can't afford to build.

00:15:45.760 When we think about the sheer expense of this project, it is in line with the proposed Olympics, billions-wise.

00:16:00.780 And yet, there doesn't seem to be the same level of public input into this, at least for me from the outside looking in.

00:16:10.260 The public were very engaged in the Olympic bid.

00:16:13.660 They were, to, I suppose, Nenshi's credit, I can't believe I'm saying this,

00:16:18.800 but the public were allowed to give feedback and participate in a plebiscite about that.

00:16:26.900 And yet, council's probably going to go ahead with the same level of spending on this green line.

00:16:35.860 And the public, who are on the hook for it all, they're really not getting a voice in any of this.

00:16:43.440 You're right.

00:16:44.220 Now, let's not give Nenshi too much credit.

00:16:46.520 Okay, I won't.

00:16:47.820 You may remember, city council opposed holding a plebiscite into whether or not we should hold the Olympics.

00:16:53.520 It was actually forced on them by the former new Democrat government.

00:16:57.220 I'll say one nice thing about them.

00:16:58.980 They made the right call by requiring a plebiscite. 1.00

00:17:01.800 But no, there's no vote on this.

00:17:03.920 And there's been such limited public engagement because of COVID-19.

00:17:08.660 So we haven't been able to organize some of the things we might have been in the past, rallies, demonstrations,

00:17:14.600 having lots of people come speak at city council, because all of those things are forbidden.

00:17:19.400 Well, they're sort of forbidden.

00:17:20.700 And apparently you can still hold mass protests depending on the issue.

00:17:24.940 We were told it was absolutely forbidden to hold a public event.

00:17:29.480 So you're right.

00:17:31.040 They may just be able to slip this thing through.

00:17:33.960 I think, though, that people just need to understand the scale of this project.

00:17:38.400 This project costs more than the entire city spends to run itself for more than a year.

00:17:44.300 So it's actually close to two years worth of spending.

00:17:47.960 And that assumes everything goes according to plan.

00:17:51.780 And how often does a massive, complicated LRT project go perfectly according to plan?

00:17:57.460 You can ask Edmonton, whose metro line suffered from problems for years and is still not fully functioning.

00:18:05.040 The city manager got booted because that went so bad.

00:18:08.160 You can ask Ottawa, who built an LRT line at great expense, and it's years behind schedule.

00:18:14.740 And now that they're finally done, it doesn't work.

00:18:17.000 It does not work properly.

00:18:18.500 So we're rushing through the most complex and expensive project in Calgary's history, and it could well end up following in the same line as those other LRT projects, a complete disaster.

00:18:29.940 Wow.

00:18:30.620 I'm glad you guys are watching all this spending.

00:18:34.060 It doesn't seem like there are a lot of municipal watchdog groups, particularly here in the north, where the work you do is so needed.

00:18:43.600 Now, I wanted to talk to you about another campaign that Save Calgary is running because, you know, you guys are Calgary-focused, but there are provincial issues that you talk about.

00:18:57.460 And you have, I suppose it's an awareness campaign about an Alberta pension plan.

00:19:05.820 Why do you guys think that's such a great idea?

00:19:07.880 Look, I don't need convincing, but maybe some of the viewers do.

00:19:10.480 So I think if you ask a typical Albertan, if you say, do you think Alberta gets a fair deal from the federal government, the response would be overwhelmingly no.

00:19:23.180 And I think that's not a crazy position to hold by any stretch of the imagination.

00:19:29.580 A lot of work's been done showing exactly how much money Albertans are transferring to other provinces through federal transfer and equalization programs.

00:19:39.600 But a huge one that doesn't get the kind of attention that maybe it does is the Canadian pension plan.

00:19:46.100 Albertans subsidize the Canadian pension plan for the entire rest of the country because we have a few unique characteristics.

00:19:53.920 First of all, we are one of, if not the youngest provinces.

00:19:57.000 The average age of an Albertan is far younger than an average age of a Nova Scotian or even someone who lives in B.C.

00:20:05.960 Albertans are, there are more Albertans participating in the workforce.

00:20:10.460 A larger percentage of Albertans, if they can find work, go to work and pay taxes and pay payroll taxes, including pension contributions.

00:20:18.820 And a larger portion of Albertans are in higher salaries.

00:20:21.740 We're maxing out our contributions to the Canadian pension plan.

00:20:25.240 And as a result, there are regions in Canada who don't have these characteristics.

00:20:30.840 They're a net drain on the Canadian pension plan.

00:20:33.760 And it's Albertans who are footing the bill to keep that going to the tune of $3 billion a year.

00:20:39.080 We believe an Alberta pension plan would, first of all, keep Alberta money in Alberta.

00:20:43.900 It would keep Albertans' own taxes for the benefit of Albertans.

00:20:47.740 It would not have to subsidize the rest of the country whose productivity and contributions are lower.

00:20:55.640 And thirdly, we've seen Ottawa, particularly under the Liberal government, become increasingly politically interfering in the affairs of things like the, well, certainly the RCMP has seen political interference.

00:21:09.240 But how long is it before Justin Trudeau and the Liberal government decide the Canada pension plan won't invest in any oil or gas for carbon tax reasons?

00:21:17.080 Well, we can keep our own pension plan and have it invest in things that make sense for Alberta and Albertans, including if it's a good investment in Alberta oil and gas.

00:21:27.620 So we think this is a great idea.

00:21:29.760 We think it follows in the steps of provinces like Quebec who already have established their own pension plan.

00:21:35.480 And it means that Alberta retirees will get to keep the same level of retirement payouts but even may pay lower premiums.

00:21:42.400 So we can keep more money in the pockets of hardworking Albertans.

00:21:45.380 We think it's a good idea.

00:21:46.320 We think it should be talked about.

00:21:48.160 We think Albertans should see the options that are available.

00:21:50.820 And we think that this is a good one for people to consider.

00:21:54.180 Now, do you think this is going to be in Jason Kenney's Fair Deal panel?

00:21:59.460 And also, are we ever going to see the Fair Deal panel?

00:22:03.920 Because we were supposed to see it and then, oh, a virus came along and now we're supposed to see it again.

00:22:10.500 What are your predictions for the Fair Deal panel?

00:22:12.680 So I understand that it is supposed to release its report to us, the voters, the everyday people of Alberta, next week after it's been held close by the government for a few weeks now.

00:22:26.800 My guess, and it's only a guess, is that they will be pretty status quo friendly, that they won't particularly be brave and bold when it comes to recommending new measures for Alberta.

00:22:42.860 And I think it's one of the reasons why we've seen Alberta take a few small steps, things like appointing its own chief firearms officer and its own parole board, because they're going to try and show they're doing something.

00:22:56.340 Because when the report comes out, they're actually not going to do very much.

00:22:58.900 So we wanted to make sure Albertans knew what was being considered by the Fair Deal panel before that report came out, just in case the government decides to try and wash it all under the table.

00:23:10.720 So, you know, if they do that, we're going to try and hold them to account because we think these are important ideas that are good for Alberta.

00:23:17.720 But I have to be honest, I'm not really holding my breath about this Fair Deal panel and its report.

00:23:24.220 Yeah, me neither.

00:23:26.460 Governments are nothing if not predictable, and they are generally not bold.

00:23:31.980 William, how do people support the very important work that you do?

00:23:36.640 Because not only do you run education campaigns, but you also are key in stopping these massive spending projects, particularly in Calgary.

00:23:48.020 I would say that you and another group with your little shoestring budgets, you stopped the Olympics and saved Calgary taxpayers billions of dollars.

00:23:57.140 Could you imagine if they were trying to hold the Olympics right now, like trying to get ready for the Olympics?

00:24:02.780 I mean, just the foresight that Save Calgary had to stop that, good gracious, Calgary owes you guys a debt of thanks.

00:24:11.420 But how do they support the work that you do?

00:24:14.260 Because even just a little bit of money, you guys use that to make a huge impact.

00:24:19.020 Well, and thank you very much, Sheila.

00:24:20.740 I, you know, I think all to all, the biggest enemy of good government at the local level is just people not knowing what's going on down at City Hall.

00:24:29.660 So we think it's important that there's at least one group whose job is to tell people what city councillors are doing, especially given how often they try and raise your taxes.

00:24:40.240 So if you, you know, think that's an important role, if you think that it isn't just big companies or big unions who should have lobbyists, everyday taxpayers should have lobbyists too, and that's what we consider ourselves.

00:24:50.680 SaveCalgary.com is our website.

00:24:53.940 You can follow us on all our social media channels.

00:24:56.560 They're all Save Calgary if you search for them.

00:24:58.960 You can make a contribution to us online through our website, and we appreciate every single dollar that hardworking people contribute to us.

00:25:06.540 And sign up to our mailing list so you can, you know, keep on top of what's happening down at City Hall.

00:25:12.520 A lot of people don't know when they're raising your taxes because the city's budgeting is so opaque.

00:25:20.100 I tried to look up how much Calgary was proposing to spend this year, and after a few days of research, I still couldn't.

00:25:27.380 Why?

00:25:27.840 Well, one of the reasons is the budget document is 600 pages long, and nowhere does it actually say total spending for 2020.

00:25:35.040 They don't want you to know.

00:25:36.120 So we're going to keep that fight.

00:25:38.560 We're going to keep trying to make sure people know what's happening down at City Hall with their tax dollars.

00:25:43.640 And if you go to SaveCalgary.com, sign up to our mailing list, or make us a contribution, that really helps the work that we're trying to do.

00:25:50.440 Fantastic, William.

00:25:51.200 Thank you so much for coming on the show, and it has to be a lot sooner than it was between now and the last time you were on the show.

00:25:59.560 Well, thanks for having me back.

00:26:00.700 I appreciate it, Sheila.

00:26:02.000 Thanks, William.

00:26:06.120 Thank you so much for tuning in.

00:26:29.240 I'll see everybody back here in the same time, in the same place next week.

00:26:32.840 And remember, don't let the government tell you that you've had too much to think.

00:26:59.240 Thank you.

00:26:59.780 Thank you.

00:26:59.840 Thank you.

00:27:00.760 Thank you.

00:27:02.840 Thank you.

00:27:02.960 Thank you.

00:27:03.520 Thank you.

Rebel News Podcast - June 11, 2020

Outrageous： Calgary's Mayor Nenshi raises taxes during COVID-19 crisis

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