Calgary mayoral election October 16, 2017

[dj_patm]

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Eventually the City of Calgary will need to drastically raise residential and business property taxes or drastically reduce spending.

Taking on more debt is not an option, unless the province will allow the city to raise their debt ceiling limit.

Or demolish 25% of the downtown office towers.

You keep criticizing Smith supporters, but Nenshi supporters also seem to be oblivious to the financial reckoning fast approaching.

Trump's possible Yellen replacement wants to raise rates up 350 basis points. Debtors will be slammed - hard. Bye bye easy money.

This council showed it has the balls to raise taxes to pay for their major projects and services and still has the lowest taxes of any major municipality. Alarmist rhetoric. What would be more alarming is Smith coming in and saying he's going to magically lower taxes some how. I think Calgarians have shown that they understand the need to pay tax to fund the projects and service level they expect. Seems that for the most part, we get that the free ride is over.

The challenges facing this city are external pressures on their main industry. Municipal politicians can't do anything about oil prices or demand. They can try to attract other industry, something Nenshi has made public efforts to address through diversification. Although, to be fair I'm sure all candidates would say and do the same things on that front. No one is against trying to fix the economy.

[dirtsniffer]

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Can you explain what that means? If you're socially liberal you support services for the disadvantaged members of our society. Those programs need to be paid for with tax money. You can't say "I support low income housing initiatives.. but somebody else should pay for them.."

I support low housing initiatives, because people need help and not helping can lead to significantly greater financial and societal costs. I think the costs of the program should be covered by tax dollars (government sponsored non profits) and that we should have the money to finance the program. I believe in flat tax rates and consumption taxes. I think that public health care is a requirement, but also think private health care is too restricted.

Maybe I should say, I am socially liberal, but fiscally responsible? But i guess since generally as a country we have all accepted and most social rights are not open for debate so I am just conservative?

Apparently, libertarian or naive are the correct words..

[dj_patm]

Don't think a socially progressive person would be for a flat tax.

[suntan]

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This council showed it has the balls to raise taxes to pay for their major projects and services and still has the lowest taxes of any major municipality. Alarmist rhetoric. What would be more alarming is Smith coming in and saying he's going to magically lower taxes some how. I think Calgarians have shown that they understand the need to pay tax to fund the projects and service level they expect.

The challenges facing this city are external pressures on their main industry. Municipal politicians can't do anything about oil prices or demand. They can try to attract other industry, something Nenshi has made public efforts to address through diversification. Although, to be fair I'm sure all candidates would say and do the same things on that front.

We have low residential property taxes because we are fee'd to death on utility bills, among other things. The City of Calgary is the primary shareholder of Enmax. Enmax is run as a profit centre. Those profits go into City of Calgary revenues.

There is no magic in lowering taxes. Can you seriously not understand it?

Coderre sure succeeded in doing something about oil demand...

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Don't think a socially progressive person would be for a flat tax.

Property tax is a flat tax and has never been questioned.

[Shlade]

Well at least there's not gonna be any BS regarding the LRT green line.

[dj_patm]

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We have low residential property taxes because we are fee'd to death on utility bills, among other things. The City of Calgary is the primary shareholder of Enmax. Enmax is run as a profit centre. Those profits go into City of Calgary revenues.

There is no magic in lowering taxes. Can you seriously not understand it?

Coderre sure succeeded in doing something about oil demand...

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Property tax is a flat tax and has never been questioned.

I was referring to income tax since consumption tax was brought up. I'm pretty sure a municipality can't bring in a consumption tax?

and what are you talking about that there's no magic to lowering taxes. What would be your plan? Isn't lowering taxes against all of those alarm bells you were ringing in your last post? Are you arguing that we should cut spending on projects and services because you're worried about lowered economic activity? If so it's a moot point. The majority of Calgarians voted for the incumbent mayor because they're okay with paying the tax they do for the services and infrastructure the city provides. If taxes get too high then I'm sure cuts will be the next step.

So far there's no need to panic about that yet.

[CompletelyNumb]

Some wards are showing that more people cast ballots for Councillor than Mayor. Seems odd, I would have expected the opposite.

[suntan]

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I was referring to income tax since consumption tax was brought up. I'm pretty sure a municipality can't bring in a consumption tax?

Any tax can be progressive or regressive (note: those words mean something different in economics than politics).

and what are you talking about that there's no magic to lowering taxes. What would be your plan? Isn't lowering taxes against all of those alarm bells you were ringing in your last post?

WTF are you talking about? The amount of "stimulus spending" that this municipality has done is nothing compared to the amount of lost economic activity that occurred.

Are you arguing that we should cut spending on projects and services because you're worried about lowered economic activity? If so it's a moot point.

I repeat: The amount of "stimulus spending" that this municipality has done is nothing compared to the amount of lost economic activity that occurred.

Also, when times were "good", spending was justified because of "infrastructure deficits" and "now we have the money to build!"

Gee, it's almost like there's always an excuse to spend.

The majority of Calgarians voted for the incumbent mayor

What? LOL no.

If taxes get too high then I'm sure cuts will be the next step.

There was already a freeze last year. There will probably be a freeze this year. Even Enmax is supposedly going to review the way they charge for wastewater.

So far there's no need to panic about that yet.

There's never a need to worry until interest rates start going up, at which point their hand will be forced.

[dj_patm]

K agree to disagree cause you clearly only care about cutting spending no matter what. And yes 51% of voters voted for Nenshi, so the majorty disagree with you.

BTW, if Smith ran on an agenda of heavy cuts to services and projects then I would respect that opinion and wouldn't give his supporters any crap if thats the reason they voted for him. I'd disagree but at least its a valid reason to vote. But he didn't do that.

[rage2]

There's a misconception by dj_patm that Smith was going to cut taxes, which was never true. Smith only promised to hold tax increases at inflation levels, so less increases than the last 2 mayors. There was zero talks of cutting existing services. The only candidate that proposed cutting services was the crazy Christian homophobic guy.

There was suggestion from his campaign to businesses at various events that there would be a shift towards residential taxes, so if anything, Smith would have tried to shift some of the burden onto residents, resulting in higher property tax bills.

[adamc]

Why were you for Smith & against Nenshi, Rage2?

[FraserB]

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Well at least there's not gonna be any BS regarding the LRT green line.

There never was going to be any in the first place.

Smith would have brought it up, it would have been voted down and then life goes on. Same goes for the people who somehow figured Smith would have handed the keys to the bank to the Flames. Despite only being one vote out of fifteen.

[rage2]

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Why were you for Smith & against Nenshi, Rage2?

The big one for me was business taxes. I have a lot of business owner friends and colleagues, and what city council did to small businesses was brutal for many, devastating for some. It's an imbalance to our local economy with negative impact that trickles down to everyone from employees to consumers. This article sums it up nicely:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgar...cast-1.4320615

The loss of revenue in the core from the downturn should have been shifted to residential as well as small businesses, and not just small businesses. While I wouldn't mind my property taxes going up to make up the shortfall, I'm in the minority, so it's not a popular strategy with an election.

I've been anti Nenshi for quite some time ever since the poor experiences dealing with his office, but I'm not a hate voter. If there was no credible candidate, I probably wouldn't have even bothered voting. Smith made a lot of sense to businesses and primarily targeted that base, which was surprising how much traction he gained based on last night's results.

Being a Flames fan, a lot of friends thought I was voting for Smith for an arena, but I'm actually against public dollars today for big white elephant projects, whether it's an arena, library, or whatever during a downturn. If we had a gravy train of money coming in, that's a different story.

[craigcd]

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Don't mean to derail, but anyone follow the Allan Hunter story in the Airdrie elections? Way more interesting than anything going on in Calgary...

Lots of lol's there. I am in a private Airdrie FB group, he is also apparently a part of it. They were attacking him like crazy haha

[Xtrema]

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Why were you for Smith & against Nenshi, Rage2?

I think the ideology has a generation change. We sort of changed from pro people to pro business and back to pro people again in the last 40 years.

Businesses dealing with triple threat of Trudeau, Notley and Nenshi, they would want at least some relief to kick Nenshi out. And UCP sort of want this to be 1st salvo in outing the left.

I think Bill Smith had a message problem and had to clarify or change position multiple times. And both camps for a lack of better word, has produced fake news over what other camp is about or created tons of distraction.

[kertejud2]

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The big one for me was business taxes. I have a lot of business owner friends and colleagues, and what city council did to small businesses was brutal for many, devastating for some. It's an imbalance to our local economy that trickles down to everyone from employees to consumers. This article sums it up nicely:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgar...cast-1.4320615

The loss of revenue in the core from the downturn should have been shifted to residential as well as small businesses, and not just small businesses. While I wouldn't mind my property taxes going up to make up the shortfall, I'm in the minority, so it's not a popular strategy with an election.

As mentioned before, the business tax is being consolidated, to help prevent swings like this, and be fully merged with the non-residential property tax by 2019.

While a bigger hit to building owners, despite your beliefs otherwise, the buildings downtown are worth a lot, even when they sit empty. While the cost will still be passed on, it is a much more stable increase than the effects we saw when the business tax totals needed to be made up from somewhere other than downtown.

[Masked Bandit]

I don't know that Nenshi WON this election, I think Smith LOST it. All he really needed to do was provide some reasonable details on his policies and he would have been successful. His communications guy should be fired, all the media said was "give us some meat", but the Smith campaign just sat in silence with "we're not Nenshi". Smith let this one slip through his fingers.

[Xtrema]

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I don't know that Nenshi WON this election, I think Smith LOST it. All he really needed to do was provide some reasonable details on his policies and he would have been successful. His communications guy should be fired, all the media said was "give us some meat", but the Smith campaign just sat in silence with "we're not Nenshi". Smith let this one slip through his fingers.

I think if they don't stir the pot with green line. It would be ok.

[rage2]

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And both camps for a lack of better word, has produced fake news over what other camp is about or created tons of distraction.

On the bright side, it made it entertaining as fuck. Honestly, this is the first civic election that had my interest. It's the reason why I follow US politics way more than Canadian.

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As mentioned before, the business tax is being consolidated, to help prevent swings like this, and be fully merged with the non-residential property tax by 2019.

While a bigger hit to building owners, despite your beliefs otherwise, the buildings downtown are worth a lot, even when they sit empty. While the cost will still be passed on, it is a much more stable increase than the effects we saw when the business tax totals needed to be made up from somewhere other than downtown.

Consolidating both won't change the swing much during a downturn mainly because of how we determine value and taxation based on that value. There needs to be a shift in where the tax dollars are coming from between residential and business when necessary in sharp changes to the economy. At the end of the day, there needs to be a more fare way of assessing and taxing businesses and building owners. The entire assessment process is completely arbitrary and not tied to actual value, which makes it easy to take advantage of to make up revenue shortfalls. I don't know what the right solution is here.

[J-hop]

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Lots of lol's there. I am in a private Airdrie FB group, he is also apparently a part of it. They were attacking him like crazy haha

Funny how people go full “SJW at a pro life rally” when they don’t agree with the outcome of an election.