No one should hold their breath expecting a referendum on a provincial sales tax alongside all the other questions on the Oct. 19 ballot.

Last week, Premier Danielle Smith confirmed that the only way her government would consider a PST is if its proponents do the citizen initiative petition legwork and force a vote. That’s not likely to happen, just as it’s unlikely there would be anything close to majority support if such a vote did occur.

As it stands, Alberta law stipulates that a referendum must occur before a PST can be implemented. In fact, the Taxpayer Protection Act was amended in 2023 to include the same requirement for any future personal or corporate income tax increases.

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As the premier declared at the time, “Promise made. Promise kept. Bill 1 has passed in the legislature, ensuring families and businesses are protected from future tax hikes without a referendum.”

That will come as news to the families and businesses hit with tax increases in last month’s budget. The Taxpayer Protection Act, of course, does not cover increases in the province’s share of property taxes, which is what this budget delivers in spades.

The numbers vary for communities around the province. For Calgary, the increase is especially substantial, representing an annual $339 tax increase for the typical single-family home. Mayor Jeromy Farkas says it’s the largest property tax jump in the city’s history.

The concerns about “protection” and democratic accountability around such tax increases must now take a back seat — in this particular instance — to the urgent need to pay for new spending.

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Facing questions last week about the tax increase and the municipal pushback, the premier claimed that “we heard from ratepayers in Calgary that they wanted us to keep up with growth. They wanted us to build more schools. They wanted us to address issues of complexity.”

She then challenged those opposed to the property tax hike to “tell me which schools they want cancelled and which complexity teams they want cancelled.”

In other words, if you don’t generate the revenue to pay for this new spending, the spending won’t be there. You can’t have it both ways.

Except this Alberta government — like Alberta governments before it — absolutely wants to have it both ways. The idea that taxes need to rise to pay for new spending flies in the face of the approach everywhere else in this budget, and it’s exactly what the UCP is constantly warning that the NDP would do if given the chance.

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The UCP pose as fiscal conservatives when railing against consumption taxes or trot out symbolic legislation such as the Taxpayer Protection Act. Then the government cranks up spending, blowing through its own fiscal framework in the process. Suddenly, the onus is on the government’s selfish and heartless critics to come up with an itemized list of spending cuts, as though there’s zero accountability for a government that keeps taxes low and spending high.

It’s cynical politics to begin with, made all the worse by the attempt to camouflage the tax increases by lumping them in with the municipal property tax bill.

Alberta needs new schools, not to mention new hospitals and other new infrastructure. The Alberta government has clearly staked out this position, yet it is of two very different minds as to whether an obligation exists to figure out how to pay for it all.

Lucky for this Alberta government — like Alberta governments before it — it may be rescued once again by the royalty revenue roller-coaster. If oil prices stay at or above the spike we saw last week, it could erase this year’s expected deficit.

That doesn’t actually fix any of this, mind you. It just makes it easier to continue with business as usual.

Rob Breakenridge is a Calgary-based podcaster and writer. He can be found at robbreakenridge.ca and reached at rob.breakenridge@gmail.com

© Calgary Herald