Mayor Farkas has picked a fight with Premier Smith. And he picked a good one.
Over the last few weeks, Mayor Farkas has called out the province for hypocritically using Calgary property taxpayers to subsidize provincial education bills. In 2025, the UCP raised the education property tax by 14 per cent, then in 2026, the UCP raised it again by another 19 per cent.
By Farkas’s calculations, the UCP have raised the education property tax on Calgarians by 57% over the last four years.
At first, Mayor Farkas was just picking up from where former Mayor Gondek left off, telling Calgarians that the massive increases on your property taxes aren’t coming from the City, but from the province. Mayor Farkas, like Mayor Gondek before him, is angry that Premier Danielle Smith expects Calgarians to shoulder a bigger portion of a provincial responsibility.
Yet, this fight is more than just about your property tax bill. Premier Smith and the governing UCP are slowly making public education a “pay-to-play” system, and they’re using your property tax bill to do it.
Mayor Farkas, while primarily focused on the rising property taxes, keyed in on an area of provincial hypocrisy and made it his main line of attack – the Premier and the UCP are using Calgary property taxes as if it was their own personal equalization payments. Mayor Farkas correctly accused Premier Smith of taking money from Calgary and moving it around the province to subsidize the cost of public education in Alberta.
At a town hall in August of last year, CityNews reported that Smith accused the federal government of taking money through equalization and then using “political means to transfer it” out of Alberta while spending it in “places that vote liberal.”
Would raising the education property taxes of Calgarians to pay for services provincewide be considered the same as moving money around to areas that vote more Conservative?
Reality is, the Government of Alberta is using Calgary to subsidize education across the province. The Premier, when pressed about the extreme property tax increases, said: “Calgary ratepayers are paying for Calgary students.” She just forgot to mention that they’re also paying for Edmonton students, Grande Prairie students, and even Medicine Hat students.
Further, what the Premier’s commentary excludes is that the education system is funded in a combination of income taxes, revenues, and property taxes across the province. Depending on the mix of revenue sources, paying for education can be fairly distributed across Alberta’s wealth, or it can be disproportionately placed on the shoulders of Calgary families.
Lately, Calgarians have been asked to pay a lot more, then a lot more again, to send Alberta’s kids to school – all the while the province reduces its share of the total costs of public education across Alberta. By raising the education property tax, the Government of Alberta gave itself a discount and shifted the costs to Calgary families.
Opening your wallet for Alberta’s public education system
Education in Alberta is becoming an out-of-pocket cost.
The average Calgary household will pay an additional $340 a year to fund public education. Last year they were asked to pay an additional 218$ dollars a year. That same Calgary family now pays approximately $2,000 in property taxes to send Alberta’s kids to school. Just two years ago, families paid about $1,400. I wonder what we’ll have to pay next year to send our kids to school. All the while, the provincial share of education costs are shrinking.
Farkas may not have intended to highlight the province making education an out-of-pocket expense, but he picked a fight with implications much bigger than who should be blamed for rising property taxes.
Property taxes shouldn’t be thought of like other taxes. Property taxes are known as a “regressive” tax. Income tax, on the other hand, is a “progressive” tax. A progressive tax is a tax where the rich pay a bigger share of the taxes collected, while middle and low-income people pay proportionately less. Property tax works the opposite way. Low and middle-income people pay a higher proportion of their income to property taxes, while wealthier families pay a smaller portion. And unlike income taxes that come off your cheque before you get paid, property taxes are a bill you pay out-of-pocket.
Paying for education with property taxes makes it proportionately more expensive for low and middle-income families, while wealthier families get a tax break.
The province could raise income taxes or pay for education with energy revenues to create a fairer funding model and better share the cost of public education across all the streams of income the province has at its disposal. Instead, they made the political choice to place the burden of Alberta education on property taxes.
For comparison, Edmonton and Calgary households have roughly the same household income (Median before tax household income in Calgary is $100,000 and $96,000 in Edmonton), but Calgarian households will pay almost double what Edmonton households do to send their kids to school.
Calgarians don’t make double the money, we don’t have double the population, our school system isn’t twice as expensive. Housing, as a cost of living in Calgary, is much more expensive than in Edmonton. Yet, at the end of every year, Calgarians pay twice as much to send kids to school. That is not a fair deal for Calgary.
This year, the two school boards in Calgary will receive $2.24 billion in funding. Calgary taxpayers are now paying over 50 per cent of that through property taxes. Three hours north in Edmonton, they will only shoulder 31 per cent percent of the cost of their public school system.
Calgary families will pay 19 per cent more than Edmonton families will to send their kids to school. All the while, the provincial government is reducing how much it pays for public education. That is true tax unfairness. Education in Alberta is becoming an out-of-pocket, pay-to-play system where the Government of Alberta is slowly shifting the costs from their budget to yours.
Farkas might not have known it, but he picked a fight much bigger than just property taxes – this is about the future of education, and more importantly, how much your family is going to have to pay for it.
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