Nenshi talks taxes, Kenney, Green Line and mistakes

The past year has been filled with difficulties and frustrations for some Calgarians.

Office space remains abundant downtown and small business owners say they're paying for it with spiking property tax bills.

• To hear what Mayor Naheed Nenshi thinks of city council's decisions, the provincial government and changes for 2020, click on the video above for the full interview.

Along with that, there's uncertainly in the energy sector, the future of the city's Green Line LRT expansion remains unclear and the new arena was approved — ultimately costing taxpayers $290 million.

With a new year approaching, what were some of the most divisive decisions made in 2019? And what's to come in 2020? 

Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi sat down with Calgary Eyeopener guest host Rob Brown for that conversation. 

The transcript below has been edited for clarity and length.

Q: How would you characterize 2019 in a word or two?    

A: How about tumultuous. There were a lot of ups. There were a lot of downs. There certainly were some fumbled balls in terms of how we managed a few things.

In particular, I don't mind saying that I think we made a mistake with those mid-year budget cuts. I think they were hasty and I think that they didn't accomplish what they needed to accomplish.

Q: Which is what?

A: We basically have this situation with businesses outside of the downtown core seeing these huge tax increases because businesses within the downtown core are seeing 70 to 80 per cent tax cuts. Just to be clear, under the legislation under which we operate, everybody has to pay the same rate.

But what happens then is if somebody's assessment goes way down because everyone pays the same rate, someone else whose assessment stayed the same or went up a little bit sees a huge increase in their taxes. That's just how the line of the graph works and so we've known this for some time.

In fact, the city has spent about $200 million of our savings trying to buffer businesses against the worst of this. I'm the first to admit because of the legislation we operate under and because of restrictions we operate under, we haven't spent the money as efficiently as we should have in terms of helping the businesses in the most need.

Q: Council screwed up is what I'm hearing you say?

A: What was going on was because we have to treat everybody the same — the tax rebates we were giving people were a little bit inefficient. The majority of the money goes to these big multinational firms who pay the most taxes. It was very difficult for us to find a way to really focus the money on the neighborhood dry cleaner and the restaurant that was having trouble.

Q: So are people going to see their property taxes go up?

A: Yes, so even though we froze taxes overall, homeowners are going to see an increase of about $10 or $11 a month next year for the average home and that money is going to the businesses. There's far fewer businesses, so it's a much bigger impact for them than $10 or $11 a month.

That will help a lot, but we still have a very rocky assessment here. Not everyone's went up or down at the same time, so there are some parts of the city and some categories of business where the assessment went up five or 10 per cent. For those people, they're actually going to see a pretty big increase in their taxes.

Let's not forget that council spent all the money on the rebate that I had tried to design for two years in one year. The rebate's gone now, so even if your base-level taxes are lower next year than they were this year, there's no more rebate, so you may see more coming out.

Q: How is that sustainable for those businesses going forward?

A: Listen, it's way better than it was, but the biggest and most important thing we can do is something every single one of us can do, which has way more impact than whatever we do on the taxes. That's to buy local.

Q: Have you been able to sit down with the premier in a room?

A: I last sat down with the premier in July and I'm not suggesting we should do it more often. We've both been very busy, but we had a very good conversation.

I frankly have not found the tone from the premier to be particularly difficult. Certainly, there are some ministers who — I don't know if they're just trying to distract from their own not-so-great records over the last several months or if this is just what they're wired to do — they tend to lash out before reaching out and it is challenging. But I also understand that they've only been in their job for a few months and they've been drinking from a huge fire hose

Soon — I hope — they will learn that collaboration is what citizens require of us and that citizens don't want us fighting. Citizens want us to continue building the economy here. 

Q: Let's talk about the year to come because this is a retrospective on 2019 but it's also a chance to talk about 2020. What is your vision for 2020?

A: From a practical perspective there's some stuff on city council's docket that we've just got to get through. For example, on the Green Line there are three sets of big decisions we have to make very early in 2020 around the design, around the financing and around the final wording of the contracts at the federal and provincial government.

Q: What's the big vision?

A: The big vision is pretty straightforward. Let's preserve what makes this place extraordinary and let's not forget it is extraordinary. But let's also make sure that we're working on a resilient economy, that we're working on growing jobs and investment here in Calgary in every industry, that we're doing that while acknowledging our responsibility to be stewards of the environment and to deliver the services that people need.

I'm feeling optimistic about some things. Trans Mountain is getting built. That's great, and that will be a big shot in the arm for the energy industry. We'll see some investment there as a result.

I'm starting to get some very good leads with some of the big fish that we've been trying to hook for business development here in Calgary. Weirdly, I think that the results of the last federal election may actually lead to a better partnership between the federal, provincial and municipal governments in terms of really understanding the need for the federal government to be partners in economic development.

With files from the Calgary Eyeopener.