Thread by @joececiyyc

Alberta’s NDP is calling on the UCP government to reverse its decision to drive up property taxes for Albertans by increasing municipal borrowing costs.

Here's my statement 👇🏼

🧵 #ableg 1/9

Albertans are already struggling to make ends meet as they pay more for income tax, more property tax, more school fees, more tuition, more interest on student debt, more camping fees, more for auto insurance and more for utilities. #ableg 2/

Increasing borrowing rates for municipalities will further download costs onto Albertans and make monthly bills even more punishing. 3/

Due to the size and security of the Alberta government, the province can borrow money for capital projects at a better rate than a city, a town or a county can. The province used to then loan money to local authorities at the same low rate it receives from financial markets. 4/

However, the province now claims it can’t afford to keep offering Alberta’s borrowing rate to municipalities despite Alberta expecting strong resource revenues this year. 5/

In a memo to local governments, the provincial government announced it will be adding a 0.5 per cent to 0.75 per cent premium to borrowing rates for local authorities. This is effectively a new provincial tax on every single municipal capital project in the province. 6/

The increased borrowing rate is expected to add millions of dollars’ worth of interest payments to municipal projects. It also comes at a time when the UCP announced in this year’s budget that it is cutting municipal infrastructure spending by $1 billion. 7/

This cut coupled with higher interest rates means local authorities will have to borrow more money and pay more interest to continue building infrastructure projects. 8/

This extra money will come directly from property taxpayers’ through higher property taxes. It’s wrong for the UCP to be taking money out of the pockets of Alberta families and small businesses like this and this decision needs to be reversed immediately. #ableg 9/9 🧵 END