Facts about the city budget you never knew. That might shock you.
The more you know, the stronger your voice.
Your whole city costs you about $8.44 a day. Inflation and population growth determine the base budget growth, but there is another type of tax that gets thrown on us, and that's where it gets interesting. You'll find out more in Part 3.
Roads, fire trucks, police, buses, rec centres, parks, libraries, snow plows. Everything, for every person, for less than lunch. Let's check it out.
These are interactive panels that can help unpack the way municipal money works!
01Part 1 of 9
First: is the city spending more per person than it used to?
The city's day-to-day budget grew from $1.8 billion in 2011 to $4 billion in 2026. Sounds like a lot, right?
But two other things grew: the number of people (812,000 → 1,284,000, which is like adding two Red Deers and a Lethbridge to the same city) and prices (everything costs about 40% more than in 2011, as you know from your grocery bill!).
So let's take a look at the numbers: city spending per person, in today's dollars, every year since 2011:
What this chart shows: city spending on YOU, per person, every year
The orange line is how many dollars the city spends on each resident, adjusted so a 2011 dollar and a 2026 dollar are the same size. Watch its shape: it climbs through the 2010s growth years, peaks around 2019, then a run of austerity budgets pulls it back down to almost exactly where it started. If City Hall were overspending, the line would end high. It ends where it began. The dark dots are years anchored to actual budget documents and reporting; the remaining years are careful estimates between them.
Tap any year for its numbers
FLAT (+1% in 15 years)
Real spending per person, 2011 vs 2026. And it's DOWN roughly 18% from its 2019 peak.
What that means for you
The mower still mows. The pool still opens. 911 still answers. Your city delivers about the same amount of "city" per person as far as spending per person as it did in 2011. Expenditures stayed relatively constant. It absorbed 470,000 new residents without spending a real dollar more on each one.
Show me the math
2011
2026
Day-to-day budget
$1.77 B
$3.96 B
People in Edmonton
812,201
~1,284,000
Per person (that year's dollars)
$2,179
$3,082
Per person (2026 dollars)
$3,050
$3,082
Sources: City of Edmonton 2011 Approved Operating Budget and 2026 Approved Operating Budget, plus reported approved operating budgets for the anchor years: 2015 ($2.3B), 2019 (~$2.98B), 2021 ($3.0B), 2022 ($3.0B), 2023 ($3.24B), 2024 ($3.59B actual), 2025 ($3.86B). Check it out for yourself at the City's Open Budget portal. Inflation: Statistics Canada CPI, about 40% cumulative. (Municipal Price Index (MPI) will vary)
02Part 2 of 9
Okay, so who pays for it?
This part isn't really common knowledge: your property taxes don't cover the whole thing. Not even close. Think of the city budget kind of like a potluck dinner. Property tax is the biggest dish, but things like rec centre admission fees, transit fares, business licences, EPCOR's annual dividend cheque to the city, and the grants we do get from the province and Ottawa all bring something to the table.
Here is one dollar of city services, split by who brought it:
What this bar shows: one single dollar of city services, and who pays each piece of it
The whole bar is $1.00 of everything the city does. Orange is your property tax. Red is grants from the province and Ottawa. Grey is fees, EPCOR, and the city's own earnings. Now tap between the two years and watch what happens to your share.
Your property tax53¢
Grants from the province & Ottawa7¢
User fees, EPCOR, investments, other40¢
In plain words
Watch the orange part grow and the red part shrink. Remember Part 1: spending is flat, so you are not getting more city services and infrastructure per capita. Instead, you are paying for a bigger slice of the same services and infrastructure, because another partner stopped paying its former share. Which partner? That's Part 3.
Ok, what is in "fees & other"? Explain it to me.
In 2026: user fees, fines and permits ($359M), franchise fees that ATCO and EPCOR pay to use city land ($254M), the dividend EPCOR pays the city as its owner ($206M), transit fares ($112M), the city's own investment earnings ($133M), and government grants ($139M). And notice something: the whole "fees & other" side of the potluck carries a SMALLER share of the budget now (33¢ of every dollar) than it did in 2011 (40¢). User fees are covering less of the load than they used to, not more. The city's investment program is an amazing unsung hero: it has earned over a billion dollars in the past decade, money that directly reduces what taxpayers have to cover. And continues to grow.
03Part 3 of 9
Who stopped paying? The province did.
The Sneaky Cut
Back in 2011-12, the province sent Alberta Municipalities about $585 per person, per year in unconstrained infrastructure money. That's the unglamorous cash that is used to repave your street, fix bridges, and keeps the fire hall in shape. There are no big ribbon cuttings with that work. Just the everyday needs a city runs on.
Today that number has plummeted to about $165 per person.
What these bars show: the province's road-and-repair money for YOU, then and now
Same funding stream, measured per Edmontonian, with inflation already accounted for. The green bar is what the province used to send for your streets, bridges and buildings. The red bar is what it sends now. The gap between those two bars? That's your pothole.
2011-12: provincial infrastructure money, per Edmontonian$585
2026: the same funding stream, per Edmontonian$165
−72% per person
Roughly $400 million per year that is withheld. Every year. This is not a one-time cut. It is ongoing.
What that means for you
That lost $400M per year is a road that gets resurfaced in year 25 instead of year 15. It's a rec centre roof patched instead of replaced. It's the potholes - my gosh, the potholes - that come back every spring. You feel this cut under your tires before you'll ever see it stay in the news cycle - which is why I am sharing it with you now!
Example
Imagine you have two other roommates who split the rent with you for years. One of them is your 'boss'. Then say your 'boss' decides they only want to put in a quarter of their old share and decides you have to cover the difference, but they still use the kitchen and laundry. The rent didn't change in this scenario, but your share of it sure did! That's the Sneaky Cut, and it's why the orange bar in Part 2 grew from 53¢ to 63¢. You got stuck with the bill.
The running total: what this cut has cost since 2011
This one cut is almost wholly responsible for the infrastructure deficit you'll see in Part 7. Add up the shortfall from every year since 2011 and here's where it stands:
If the city had taxed the difference to keep up: extra property tax needed, permanently≈ 18 points
Show me the math
The per-person funding gap grew from $0 in 2011 to about $420 by 2026 ($585 minus $165). Applying that widening gap to each year's population (812,000 growing to 1,284,000) and adding the years together lands above $3 billion in withheld funding, and the meter is still running. Replacing today's ~$400M/yr through property tax would require about 18 points (at $22.5M per point), baked into the levy permanently. The city chose a mix of deferral, savings (Part 6), and a small dedicated renewal levy instead, which is why the backlog in Part 7 exists.
Show me the receipts
Two separate measures, same story. (1) Grants from other governments were 6.6% of the city's operating budget in 2011 ($116.7M of $1.77B); by 2026 they are 3.5% ($138.8M of $3.96B). The share cut nearly in half! (2) Unconstrained provincial infrastructure funding fell from about $585 to about $165 per person, inflation adjusted. This is real: Alberta Municipalities have been sounding the alarm on this as loudly as they can. Alberta Municipalities, which represents cities, towns and villages across the province, has been documenting this same decline for years. You can see that this isn't some partisan or ideological issue - rural municipalities are being crushed, too. The funding program in question: Local Government Fiscal Framework.
04Part 4 of 9
It gets even worse: you're billed twice for some services.
The Provincial Double Bill
Some services are the province's job by law: health care, ambulances, housing, shelters, addiction and mental health care, the justice system. You already pay for those provincial services through your provincial income tax. Surprising, right? A lot of folks would assume those are city responsibilities.
When the province doesn't deliver on its own provincial responsibilities, the need doesn't just magically disappear. It lands on the city's doorstep, and the city can't simply look away. SOMEONE has to respond to the encampments, the overdoses, the delayed ambulance calls. So the city pays. Which means you pay a second time, through your property tax, for work your provincial income tax was already supposed to fund.
What this list shows: the provincial bills sitting on YOUR city's books right now
Each line is a cost the city carries today because of a provincial cut, download, or unfunded mandate. Here's the interactive part:
CLICK on the box beside each item to see the running tally of expenses and the property tax impact.
~$95M/yr
~$28M/yr
~$25M/yr
~$9M/yr
~$13M/yr
~$400M/yr
The full provincial impact if you tick everything
≈ $570M / yr
The Provincial Bill
$0M per year ≈ 0.0 points of property tax
Click the boxes above to build the tally.
This is what property tax would be if we didn't find a way to save Edmontonians from the true cost of the provincial bill. The final rate in 2026 was 6.9%, not the 25.3% it actually costs.
What that means for you
$570M per year equals about 25% property tax. In other words: if the province restored its former funding and took responsibility for its own provincial duties, this year's 6.9% property tax increase COULD have been a substantial TAX CUT instead, with no service reduction changes at all. Incredible.
Try it with YOUR property
Residential or commercial. Your assessed value is on your tax notice. Typical Edmonton home: $492,500.
What if the province paid its share again?Flip this to see your bill if provincial funding returned to 2011 levels and the province took back its own provincial responsibilities (~25 tax points).
$3,812
Municipal tax: pays for city services (Council controls this)
$1,340
Provincial education tax: collected on your city bill, sent to the province's general revenue (Council has no say)
$259/yr
The slice of your municipal tax covering provincial downloads: $21.60/month billed twice
$5,152
Estimated total 2026 property tax bill
Your whole bill
Every slice is a piece of YOUR total bill. Orange goes to city services. Red covers the provincial downloads. Blue leaves the city entirely and goes to the province.
This year's change on your bill
Bars to the right of the line mean your bill goes UP. Bars to the left mean it goes DOWN. Flip the toggle above and watch what changes... and what the province keeps raising anyway.
Municipal portion: +6.9%+$246/yr
Provincial education tax: the province raised it again+$25/yr
← your bill goes downyour bill goes up →
Your total: $5,152
City services$0
Covering downloads$0
Provincial education tax$0
Tap the switch to see the province pay its share.
In plain words
Notice the second-biggest slice of your "property tax bill" isn't city spending at all. It's a provincial education tax the city is legally required to collect for the province, and it goes into the province's general revenue fund, NOT directly to your local schools. Sources: Alberta Education Property Tax and the City's Where Your Taxes Go.
Wait, why can't the city just refuse the downloads?
Because cities legally belong to provinces. Under Canada's constitution, municipalities exist only through provincial law (in Alberta, the Municipal Government Act). The province decides what cities must do, what they may tax, and can override council decisions. Cities also cannot run deficits: by provincial law the budget must balance every single year. So when a provincial cost lands on the city, the only legal options are to cut a city service or put it on property tax. There is no third door.
The City is the only democratic government institution where your voice can be silenced on a whim by another order of government. You vote, you expect the policies you CHOSE to be followed, and the province can just say, "no, you have no power here." You don't exist - you are the city, and they can strip you of your right to local representation.
05Part 5 of 9
Learn to speak "budget" in 30 seconds.
Every budget debate comes down to one exchange rate: 1% of property tax ≈ $22.5 million (2026). Once you have that, you can translate any headline yourself. Three tools below, tap between them:
What this slider does: turns "budget talk" into real dollars and real services
Pick any percentage you've heard on the news. The blue number is what it's worth in actual dollars, the box underneath tells you what that money means in services YOU use, and the bottom line shows the impact on a typical Edmonton home's bill. This is also where the LGFF gap from Part 3 lives: pay-as-you-go renewal money that must now come from operating dollars instead of provincial funding.
1.0%= $22.5 million
0.5%25% (the full provincial impact)
Why this matters for you
Now slide it to 25%. That's the ~$570M annual provincial impact from Parts 3 and 4, expressed in your language. When someone says Council "just needs to find efficiencies," they are asking Council to CONJURE THAT BAR out of THIN AIR, EVERY YEAR, WITHOUT TOUCHING the services you use.
What this slider does: shows what borrowing for big projects actually costs, and buys
Slide the borrowing amount. Roughly, every $100M borrowed for a capital project costs about $8M per year in operating debt payments. But here's the part people miss: once that payment is baked into the tax base, it does NOT keep rising year after year. And when the loan is paid out, it comes OFF the books and OFF the tax bill entirely.
$100M≈ $8M/yr operating
$50M$1 Billion
Why cities borrow at all
Borrowing lets a city build NOW, while construction prices are lower, instead of later when they're higher (Part 7 shows exactly what waiting costs). Because the loan is paid over decades, people who move here in future years also help pay for the big projects they'll benefit from, instead of today's residents carrying tomorrow's users for free. The city borrows at preferred government lending rates through the Province of Alberta's local-authority loan program. Edmonton holds an AA+ credit rating (upgraded by S&P in 2025), sits well below the provincially mandated debt limit, and balances its budget every single year as the law requires. We do not carry a deficit. Ever.
Why can't we just mix operating and capital money?
By law and by design, they're separate ledgers, and you wouldn't want it any other way. Capital buys things that last 30 to 75 years: bridges, rec centres, LRT. Operating pays for things consumed this year: snow clearing, transit hours, firefighter shifts. Raiding capital to pad operating means eating your seed corn: you get one warm winter and a crumbling bridge. Pushing operating costs into capital means borrowing for groceries. Keeping them separate is the same discipline as not buying your house with your grocery money, and not buying groceries with your mortgage.
A word about SCALE
A million and a billion sound like cousins. They are not. A million seconds is about 12 days. A billion seconds is about 32 YEARS. So when a government announces, say, a $4M contribution toward a problem, hold it against the real need. Here is $4M next to Edmonton's $470M-per-year renewal gap:
$4M announcement
$470M yearly gap
Window dressing doesn't fill potholes. Scale matters, and now you can see it.
What this chart shows: every year's approved tax increase, two decades side by side
Each bar is one year's approved property tax change. Red bars are the 2004-2014 boom decade. Blue bars are 2015-2025. Look at the shape of the blue decade: it includes an actual DECREASE in 2021 (−0.3%), just 1.3% in 2020, and 1.9% in 2022. Three years of the lowest property tax changes in decades, back to back. Tap any bar for its year.
Tap any bar
2004-2014, cumulative total76.4%
2015-2025, cumulative total43.7%
In plain words
The past decade, while difficult, was actually one of the most restrained in modern Edmonton history. It came at a cost of service levels and a growing infrastructure deficit, but it also forced a more efficient City Administration, more careful management of the public purse, and more capacity for creative problem solving. There is a limit to how far that can go before it turns to true loss, but if the province comes back to the table, Edmonton has never been in a better position to maximize every dollar for residents' benefit.
What this tool shows: the universal "even Steven" formula every city lives by
There is a standard formula, used by cities everywhere, for what it costs just to STAND STILL: municipal inflation (MPI) + population growth = the baseline need. Not a dollar of new service in it. Tap any year and watch the formula assemble itself, then compare the need against what Council actually taxed. The red gaps are services quietly running on fumes.
5.0%
City inflation (MPI)
+
2.1%
Population growth
=
7.1%
Need, just to stand still
The need (MPI + growth)7.14%
What Council actually taxed1.91%
Six years added together (2020-2025): the formula says the city needed about 36 points just to stand still. Council taxed about 22. The missing ~14.5 points didn't vanish: they became thinner service, deferred repair, and the "efficiencies" from Part 6. Six-year averages: MPI 2.90%, population growth 3.04%, base need 5.94%, actual taxed 3.53%.
The Growth Lag (why growth drains a city first)
Here's a wrinkle almost nobody knows. When 60,000 new people arrive, they use roads, buses, parks, and 911 on DAY ONE. But the new homes, shops and warehouses that grow the city's assessment base take YEARS to get built, assessed, and added to the tax rolls. Until then, growth is a net budget drain on the city. Meanwhile the PROVINCE collects income tax from every one of those newcomers at the very first tax deadline. The province gets paid for growth immediately. The city that services that growth waits years, and covers the gap in the meantime.
In plain words
When someone says a tax increase "should just match inflation," they're using the wrong formula. A city's stand-still number is inflation PLUS growth, and Edmonton's own six-year record shows Council taxing BELOW that line in four of six years. The full dataset lives in the C.R.E.A.M. deep-dive at aaronpaquette.ca/cream.
06Part 6 of 9
"But has the city even tried to save money?"
$1.9 Billion Says Yes
Between 2015 and 2025, Council and Administration cut, saved, and reallocated a cumulative $1.9 billion: a mandated 2% cut across departments for years, tiered reduction targets, pandemic austerity, and forced absorption of provincial funding gaps.
What this chart shows: the taxes you were SPARED by a decade of city savings
Two views, tap between them. Year by year: the grey bar is what your taxes would have needed to be with no savings work; the orange bar is what you actually paid, and every tap also shows that year's approved tax increase. The budget that could have been: the operating budget itself, with every saved dollar stacked back on top, aggregating over time, carried forward to 2035 on current trends. The shaded zone is the projection: lighter background, so you always know where the audited history ends and the forecast begins.
Tap any year to compare
Read it and gasp: stack a decade of cuts back onto the budget and the 2025 operating budget would have been roughly $5.7 billion instead of $3.9 billion. The $1.9B in accumulated reductions equals about a third of what the budget would otherwise have become. That gap keeps compounding into the projected years.
Truth cuts both ways, and this is the part every resident deserves to understand: savings are NOT free. That $1.9 billion is also a list of things that don't exist. Tap to see what $1.9B could have been instead:
In plain words
The low-hanging fruit is long gone. A decade of squeezing means each new "efficiency" isn't trimming paper costs, it's closing something you use. When Council debates a tax increase now, the real choice on the table is almost never "spend more vs. spend less." It's "which service do we protect, and which gap do we let grow." That is the impossible math your Councillors sit with every budget season.
07Part 7 of 9
The cost of waiting: infrastructure deficits.
An "infrastructure deficit" is repair work a city knows it needs but can't fund yet. Edmonton falls behind by roughly $470 million every year on renewal alone, and the accumulated backlog is well over $1.5 billion and growing.
Some people assume that's Edmonton mismanagement. Here's the test: if it were one city's incompetence, other Alberta cities wouldn't be facing the EXACT same thing. Look:
What this chart shows: the repair backlog is EVERYWHERE in Alberta, not just here
One bar per reported infrastructure gap. Tap the buttons and watch the bars re-draw to scale. Start with Edmonton. Then Calgary. Then ALL of Alberta's municipalities combined, and watch Edmonton's bar shrink beside a $30 billion problem. That shrinking is the whole point: this is a provincial-scale disease, not one City Hall's failure. (Measures are as each body reports them: Edmonton's is its accumulated backlog to date, Calgary's is its reported multi-year gap, and the province-wide figure is Alberta Municipalities' combined estimate. If anything, comparing Edmonton's to-date backlog against multi-year figures UNDERSTATES Edmonton's position.)
What this slider shows: what waiting does to a repair bill, year by year
Two separate examples below, not connected jobs. Example one is the Coliseum: demolition was estimated around $15M in 2016, and the 2026 price is around $45M. Example two is a typical road project: rehabilitation done on schedule costs a fraction of the full reconstruction required after a road fails, with a 3x to 4x multiplier being standard in road engineering (this example uses $10M and $35M). Drag the years and watch each estimate grow on its own track.
0 yearswaiting has added $0M
Coliseum demolition$15M
Road: rehab now vs rebuild after failure$10M
Fix it nowWait 10 years
Every municipality in Alberta combined faces an infrastructure deficit that Alberta Municipalities pegged at roughly $30 billion, a figure that is now years old and only grows with time and construction inflation. When every city, town, and village in a province shows the same symptom at the same time, the cause isn't 350 separate cases of local incompetence. It's the shared funding environment they all live in: the same provincial infrastructure money that fell from $585 to $165 per person.
What that means for you
Deferred repair is the most expensive purchase a city can make. A $1M road fix deferred by a decade can become a multi-million dollar rebuild. Every year that the backlog grows, the future bill compounds. "Cheap" budgets today quietly buy expensive emergencies tomorrow, and your future self pays the difference. "Every cost deferred is a greater future cost incurred."
08Part 8 of 9
Cash or credit: how a city pays for big builds.
PAYG vs Debt
There are two ways to pay for a capital project. Pay-as-you-go (PAYG) means cash: the cost comes straight out of the current 4-year budget's taxes. Debt means borrowing at the city's preferred government lending rate and paying it down over time, the way most families buy a house.
Here's a real example. Widening the remaining stretch of 153 Avenue would run somewhere around $50M. Pay cash and that's about 2% on property taxes, spread across the 4-year budget: roughly half a point per year, or about $20 a year for an average household. Borrow instead and the servicing runs about $4M a year, phased in at roughly $1M per budget year: about 0.04% at a time, or $1.56 a year for that same household, with the payments continuing into the next budget cycles until the loan is done.
Neither option is free and neither is wrong. Cash costs more now and is finished sooner. Debt costs less per year, runs longer, and uses up borrowing room. Try it with real projects - either contemplated or from the current 4-year capital budget:
What this tool shows: the same project, paid both ways
Tap a project. The two columns show what each payment route costs per year in tax points and on an average household's bill.
0.6%/yr
PAY CASH (PAYG) About $20/yr on an average household bill, for the 4 budget years. Then done.
0.04%/yr
BORROW (DEBT) About $1.56/yr on an average household bill, phased in. Payments continue roughly two more budget cycles, and the loan uses borrowing room.
What that means for you
When you hear "the city is taking on debt for that project," you now know the real question to ask: is this a long-lived asset that future residents will also use? If yes, debt spreads the cost to everyone who benefits, at a fraction of the yearly bill, while cash would crowd that project against snow clearing and transit hours in a single budget. That's the actual trade-off Council weighs, line by line, every capital budget.
Where do these project numbers come from?
Project figures are estimates drawn from the current capital budget cycle and public reporting: 153 Avenue remaining segment (~$50M, estimate based on comparable past work), a new fire station (~$30M), the 50 Street rail grade separation (~$220M as reported), the Terwillegar Drive expansion program (~$270M), and Lewis Farms Recreation Centre (~$343M, spring 2026 budget reports). Debt math uses roughly 8% annual servicing per $100M borrowed, phased across the 4-year budget. Explore the capital budget at the Open Budget portal.
09Part 9 of 9
One more thing: you're also hosting the neighbourhood barbecue.
The Regional Bill
The Edmonton metro region is home to about 1.72 million people. But only about 1.28 million of them live inside city limits and pay Edmonton property tax.
The other ~440,000 drive on Edmonton roads every day, work here, use the rec centres and libraries, attend the festivals, visit Fort Edmonton Park and the Telus World of Science, and count on Edmonton's police and fire coverage while they're in town. Great neighbours! But those region-serving facilities and that daily wear-and-tear sit almost entirely on Edmonton property tax bills.
This is a long-recognized problem, not a new complaint. Back in 2018, Edmonton's mayor publicly argued that neighbouring municipalities should start pitching in for the big regional facilities, noting it has "always been Edmonton's problem to deal with these significant facilities." A regional transit commission was formed in 2021 with Edmonton slated to pay about 56% of the cost; it was dissolved in 2023. As one former councillor put it about a neighbouring county's buses using city streets: Edmonton taxpayers cover the road maintenance and the bus stops. "Good neighbours look after each other."
What this slider shows: what YOUR household covers for the region
The City's own traffic pattern reporting and the regional population ratio put regional use of Edmonton services at about 30%. The slider starts there. Move it in either direction to test other assumptions, and watch the dollar figures, YOUR tax share, and the consequences change with it. Dig into the data yourself at the City of Edmonton Open Data Portal and edmonton.ca.
30%≈ $1,188M of services
5% of use50% of use
The Undercut
Here's how the math gets tilted further. Surrounding municipalities can advertise dramatically lower business tax rates (an average non-residential rate around 11.36 versus Edmonton's 24.22) precisely BECAUSE the big city next door supplies the airport connections, the workforce, the festivals, the specialized services and the emergency capacity their pitch depends on. The result: about 65% of new regional growth now lands outside Edmonton. And note: Edmonton already charges NO machinery-and-equipment tax to stay competitive. When regional growth outpaces the hub that makes the region attractive in the first place, everyone is sawing at the branch they're sitting on.
What that means for you
Spread the city's $3.96B budget across everyone who actually uses the city, all 1.72 million of them, and Edmonton runs on roughly $2,300 per user. That's mid-sized-town money delivering big-city service. Regional visitors do pay admissions and fares at the door, which offsets a slice. But the taxes that keep the lights on? Those come from the 1.28 million inside the boundary.
In plain words
The fix isn't hostility toward our neighbours. We love our neighbours, and a strong region is good for everyone. The fix is fair cost-sharing for regional facilities (the provincial Intermunicipal Collaboration Framework exists for exactly this) and a provincial funding formula that recognizes what a hub city actually carries. Both of those run through the same address as everything else in this explainer: the Legislature.
So, did your taxes REALLY go up because your City can't read a ledger sheet?
No. Of course not.
Spending per person is flat since 2011. As satisfying as it is to blame your local Council because they are a proximate target, your property taxes went up because the province cut its contribution by hundreds of millions per year, shifted its own provincial responsibilities onto city books, and the repair backlog it helped create keeps on compounding with no end in sight.
Tap any number above to revisit that part of the story.
You already pay provincial income tax for housing, health care, and ambulances. If it bothers you that you're billed twice while your city holds the line, that conversation belongs with your MLA and Provincial Ministers. They can choose a different path. It's never too late to remind them of the sound and power of your voice.
Ready to use that voice? Send them The Bill.
Governments send us bills all the time. Here's one going the other direction: a Resident's Bill, from you, to your MLA. Put your name on it, add your own words if you like, and send it. It takes two minutes, and MLAs count every letter they receive.
A Resident's BillThe "Stop Shortchanging My City" Act · First Reading: Your MLA's Inbox
Then pick the Ministers whose desks this belongs on:
These are the ministries' public office inboxes (the standard gov.ab.ca format). Current officeholders: alberta.ca/cabinet-ministers
Want to CC your own ward Councillor directly too? Find your ward and Councillor here, then add their email in your mail app. (I'm on the BCC line by default so I know your voice is out there.)
Don't take my word for any of this. Every card below is a primary source. Flip through them, follow the links, check my math. That's not just allowed, it's the whole point.
Open Budget Portal
Every line of the city budget, searchable by you, any time. This is where "trust me" becomes "see for yourself."
The City's own bill breakdown: ~$774 per $100,000 of residential assessment in 2026, typical home $492,500, and the 6.9% approved April 17, 2026. Powers the calculator in Part 4.
The provincial tax on your city bill. Collected by the city, sent to provincial general revenue. Rates used here: 2025 ($2.72 residential / $4.00 non-residential per $1,000).
The provincial infrastructure program whose value fell from ~$585 to ~$165 per person since 2011-12. Edmonton's mayor asked for restoration to 2011 levels in February 2026.
Cities, towns and villages across the province, documenting the ~$30B combined infrastructure deficit and the funding decline. Proof this is everyone's story, not just Edmonton's.
The 2018 call for regional cost-sharing on Edmonton's big facilities, the 56% transit cost share, and the commission that came and went (2021-2023). Part 9's paper trail.
Part 1 anchors (dark dots) are actual approved/actual budgets for 2011, 2015, 2019, 2021-2026; remaining years are interpolated. Part 3's $3B+ cumulative figure assumes the per-person gap widened steadily from 2011 to 2026. Part 5's decade bars and cumulative totals (76.4% / 43.7%); Part 6's "without savings" figures spread the $1.9B across the decade. Infrastructure measures differ by body and are labelled as reported. Part 8 project figures are budget-cycle estimates; debt math uses ~8% annual servicing per $100M with a 4-year phase-in. Calculator education amounts use 2025 rates. Ministerial addresses are the ministries' public office inboxes. Projections are trend illustrations, not promises.
