Budget plan will do little to diversify economy
Province waiting for city to complete route, price tag before giving funds
While Finance Minister Joe Ceci committed to “improve public transit across” Alberta in Thursday’s budget address, Calgary’s massive, multibillion-dollar Green Line LRT project remains without any funding commitment from the province.
The 2017-18 Alberta budget, a 154-page document released by the NDP on Thursday, offers no financial commitment and makes no mention of the 46-kilometre light rail transit line that will stretch across the city from Seton to North Pointe.
Ceci told reporters that until Calgary city council finalizes the route and price tag, the NDP government will remain the odd man out in a project that’s received $1.5-billion commitments each from the federal government and city.
“Specific siting, route, cost — all those things need to be nailed down from Calgary city council’s end before there can be an agreement to fund,” he said Thursday.
Earlier this week, Mayor Naheed Nenshi said he hoped “an actual commitment to the Green Line, whether from the carbon levy or from something else” would be present in the budget document.
“It’s not that we’re not supporting it,” Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Brian Mason said Thursday of the “ambitious” Green Line.
“We really don’t yet know the scope of the project and what its ultimate form is going to be.”
Nenshi told reporters Thursday evening he was hoping for an approval in principle, but isn’t too fussed that didn’t happen.
“I understand they’re waiting for us to finish our work,” he said.
While Calgary’s mayor said he was disappointed with some aspects of the budget, including no effort to offset the effect the carbon levy is having on Calgary Transit and a drop in funding for Alberta’s film industry, he acknowledged there was some good news.
The 2017-18 budget provides $901 million for roads and bridges across the province, including $382 million for Calgary’s ring road with more to come in future years and an unspecified amount for construction of Calgary’s No. 1 road priority, an Airport Trail link.
“That’s a critical east-west linkage in the city, between Stoney Trail and Deerfoot Trail, and we’re very, very happy to see that happening,” Nenshi said.
In his budget address, Ceci said the province would partner with the city to build a new interchange in the southeast, at 212th Avenue, to ensure Deerfoot Trail can “accommodate new and growing communities,” another project Nenshi applauded.
The province had previously refused to fund the badly needed Deerfoot Trail interchange between the rapidly growing communities of Cranston and Seton, even with the city offering to contribute $20 million alongside developer Brookfield Residential, and loan the province the remaining $30 million needed.
While no dollar commitment for the interchange was provided in the budget, area councillor Shane Keating said the fact the project is back on the table is fabulous news.
“I appreciate the minister’s office taking a second look and considering this project,” Keating said.
Mason said the city and developer made a great case for why the project was needed.
“It shows the government and the city, as well as the private sector, can collaborate to get badly needed infrastructure built,” he said.
While $6 million over two years is slated for the Calgary Zoo’s panda exhibit and $10 million for sliding track refurbishment at WinSport, the 2017-18 fiscal document allocates no funds to a potential new arena in Calgary or the underconsideration 2026 Olympic bid.
The budget has $2.3 billion in municipal infrastructure supports, including nearly $477 for GreenTRIP funding this fiscal year and $3.3 billion in Municipal Sustainability Initiative payments through to 2020-21, with municipalities sharing $846 million in 2017.
In the coming years, the GreenTRIP fund, a $2-billion pool brought in by the Ed Stelmach government amid high oil prices to fund projects that lower greenhouse gas emissions, will be phased out and replaced by other green infrastructure funds.
While Calgary’s city council approved in November a tax freeze, by dipping into the rainy-day fund to offset a 1.5 per cent property tax hike, the overall change in 2017 taxes hasn’t been clear because the city has no say in the provincial component of taxes.
The education property tax, is set every spring in the budget and Thursday’s document forecasts $2.4 billion in education property tax revenue, an increase of $32 million or 1.3 per cent from 2016-17.
The NDP’s latest budget freezes education property tax mill rates, though that doesn’t mean every municipality will see zero per cent increases, with growing cities and towns on the hook to pay more.
Nenshi said the city expects to know in the coming days exactly what that provincial freeze will mean for Calgary taxpayers.