When the Alberta economy is in a pronounced recession, the private sector is experiencing reduced profits, declining wages, heavy unemployment, and individual families are unable to cover increasing consumer costs with their declining income, it is extremely galling to watch councillors and the administration congratulate themselves on limiting our budget increase to a "mere" 2.3 per cent (at time of writing), excluding upcoming utilities increases. Such felicitous kudos provides incontrovertible evidence that the public sector lives in a zone partitioned off from reality.
Our council's inability to say no to increased spending is not only deceptive but it embodies a rank disregard for the expressed wishes of the general public. In St. Albert, the Bannister Facilitated Citizens' input to the Budget, of which I was a member, definitively showed that the vast majority of participant taxpayers did not want a tax increase. Out of the over 30 people who participated in the Bannister Input Process only three were in favour of a 3.1 per cent tax increase while the rest were unequivocally opposed to any tax increase of any amount. Additionally the group was overwhelmingly opposed to any capital projects (whether it be a library, pool, or skating rink), preferring to delay during this period of an economic downturn. The group made several excellent suggestions on how to use existing municipal space and schools to resolve the needs identified in these capital projects. Since these desires and suggestions were ignored, it seems clear that the whole process was a mere pantomime designed to put a facade of citizens participation on a budget process in which the administration had already made its decisions.
So, how do these governments justify increasing taxes in the face of opposing public opinion? First, invoke the track and tack method. While Edmonton brags that they held their tax increases to 2.85 per cent, then St. Albert boasts that they did even better by holding the tax increase to 2.3 per cent. Secondly, they continuously tout the "global player" routine as a justification for an increase in taxes. The reality is that we are not a global player and the mere fact we have national and international athletic events does not make us a global player since those events are transitory and merely produce a temporary upswing in economic activity. It is only people who have never experienced being laid-off; never lost their jobs; never faced foreclosure on their homes; and never had to cut back on Christmas gifts, who would promote tax increases in an economic recession.
Unfortunately, it is not simply this tax increase with which people are going to have to contend. Despite propaganda to the contrary, people are going to pay a provincial carbon tax, which will drain additional monies from the family bank account. Further, the provincial government has created the Capital Regional Board which constitutes a third layer of government which will inevitably result in more costly bureaucracy with absolutely no streamlining of the existing local and provincial administrations.
Surely it is time to put an end to this budget facade in which the politicians and administrators boast about their ability to “cut the increase in taxes” and put a freeze on all tax increases until the economy pulls out of its present recession. Just wait and see what your taxes will be when the Capital Region – Metro Edmonton takes over fully. They now have the house keys to Infrastructure, Transportation, Land Use and most recently Economic Development under their jurisdiction. Did you the taxpayer have any say? You may ask: What is next?
J.L. Goldsmith, St. Albert
