The City of Calgary has sent the Government of Alberta an invoice for $10 million in an effort to recoup the costs of collecting the provincial share of property taxes.
Billing the province for those costs was unanimously approved by city council back in March.
“This invoice is a symbol of fairness and accountability,” Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek told reporters Monday. “If the province is insistent on downloading responsibilities, it must also accept the cost.”
According to Gondek, the $10 million is reflective of the “proportional costs of labour and materials” required for the City of Calgary to collect this year’s provincial share, also known as the education property tax.
In its budget this year, the provincial government increased its requisition of property taxes which equated to more than $1 billion in Calgary, an 18-per cent increase over the amount taken last year.
As a result, the typical single family homeowner with a median assessment of $697,000 saw a property tax increase of $29.25 per month, or nearly $350 yearly, with just $11 of that monthly increase going to the City of Calgary.
Get breaking National news
For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen.
“The assumption is all of the property taxes that we pay go to the City of Calgary and they stay here and serve Calgarians and that’s not a fact,” Gondek said.
Gondek said the $10 million spent on collecting the provincial share of property taxes could be used on other city services, or to repair aging infrastructure.
Despite supporting the move back in March, Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot questioned the timing of the invoice and whether it would result in a payment from the province.
“The fact we’re nearing an election, and picking a fight with the province over such a small amount I think is just an exercise in futility,” he told Global News.
“My biggest issue with the education tax is it isn’t equally distributed amongst all municipalities.”
When asked about the invoice by reporters on Monday, Premier Danielle Smith said she’d be open to have a conversation about “the cost effectiveness” of having each municipality individually collecting the provincial portion of property taxes on the government’s behalf.
“I did raise it at Alberta Municipalities asking the question of whether or not this is an area that the provincial government should take over, if we should do centralized tax collection and then be able to rebate back to the municipalities rather than the reverse,” Smith said. “I’m quite happy to start that conversation if they feel the cost of tax collection has become to onerous.”
However, political experts aren’t foreseeing a provincial payment to the City of Calgary’s invoice.
“I think it could, however, be a point of negotiation between the city and the province to try to balance out some of the costs that have been imposed on the taxpayers of Calgary,” said Lori Williams, an associate professor of policy studies at Mount Royal University.
While Smith didn’t say whether the province would pay the City of Calgary’s $10 million invoice, Gondek said she believes the province is “interested in paying their bills.”
“Do I expect that they will? Hard to tell,” the mayor said.
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
