Crowsnest Pass municipal council gave first reading March 11 to a property tax rates bylaw that proposes a one per cent mill rate increase.

According to chief administrative officer Patrick Thomas, the 2025 budget, approved by council in November 2024, has a municipal tax requirement of $12,048,252, which necessitated raising the mill rate.

The increase proposed in Bylaw 1216-2025, if approved through second and third readings, would generate an additional $1,485,075 in tax revenue.

“This comes from both growth and inflation,” Thomas said.

He recommended transferring this revenue to reserves to cover the upcoming capital project needs, including road repairs, water and sewer system maintenance, and facility upgrades.

“Currently, we are funding the reserves at about 30 per cent of our depreciation, which is causing a compelling backlog of projects and assets failing in the community,” he noted.

“This is anything from an increased number of potholes to sewer and facilities that are being depleted.”

With the additional funds, depreciation funding would increase to about 63 per cent.

“Still short, but a lot closer to at least maintaining the amount that’s depreciating each year,” Thomas noted.

He pointed out that a reduction in provincial funding has compounded the issue.

“Our provincial funding that we traditionally used to help fund capital projects was cut nearly in half over the last few years, and so it doesn’t contribute to a lot of external help with these projects,” he said.

To illustrate what the additional $1.5 million in tax revenue could fund, he said: “This would equate to 200 metres of a neighbourhood renewal with water, sewer and roadwork, or about half the cost of replacing the windows and doors at the MDM Community Centre.”

“It would also be approximately what the cost was last summer for one fire engine, and that cost has increased, so it would be most of a fire engine,” he added.

While councillors considered going forward with the first reading, they expressed concerns and indicated that the true debate would take place during the second and third readings.

Dean Ward and other councillors raised concerns about the impact of inflation on the community and how the proposed increase would affect taxpayers.

“If we maintain the mill rate with all this new assessment and inflation, I’m more concerned about the inflation than the new assessment,” Ward stated, emphasizing the need for further discussion to ensure the tax rate remains fair.

Coun. Glen Girhiny voiced concerns with the rising costs, particularly as the property market has inflated, saying, “It’s kind of really disheartening.”

Coun. Lisa Sygutek suggested that the administration bring back a more detailed graph comparing current assessments and the proposed mill rate to better understand the community’s changing financial landscape.

“We can say we raised it one per cent, but we can’t control assessment,” she said, stressing that the increasing property values must be addressed to avoid disproportionate tax burdens.

While the first reading passed, it was clear that council members were looking forward to a more in-depth discussion in subsequent readings, with a focus on how to balance the growing community, rising inflation, and the fairness of tax rates.

“I look forward to that debate after the first reading,” Sygutek said.

Following approval of the first reading, Ward put forward a motion requesting administration bring additional information when the bylaw returns for second reading.

He asked for a breakdown of total assessment, levy, mill rate and Alberta School Foundation Fund contributions for the years 2020 to 2025 on the same properties used at council’s May 28, 2024, meeting.

“People need to see what the province is forcing us to do,” he said.

Ward also requested projections for both the administration’s proposed tax rate and an alternative scenario reflecting a 9.1 per cent drop in the inflation rate.

Council carried the motion, and the requested information will be presented when the bylaw returns for second reading.

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Winter isn't going away quietly.

Despite the switch to spring and warmer temperatures lately, we could see snow and freezing rain today.

"We have a low pressure system that's going to move in from the west," said Justin Shelley, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada. "That is going to bring an area of precipitation in the southwest and west central regions of the province starting early (Thursday) morning and spreading east throughout the province during the day."

Our region may not get the worst of it.

"We're not expecting the main impacts from this system to be affecting that region," Shelley said. "Starting on Thursday morning there will be a slight chance of showers with the temperature just at or above the freezing mark. It looks like the best chance of seeing some precipitation will be the evening and overnight hours on Thursday.

"As that system exits the region, the backside of that system will have a risk of freezing rain as well as a risk of some flurries in the region." 

Environment and Climate Change Canada is calling for the temperatures to drop into the minuses overnight and throughout the weekend. 

A report card on Canada’s biodiversity conservation progress gives Alberta a failing grade of D minus.

In 2022, Canada and 195 other signatory nations adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which sets targets to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. The framework includes protecting 30 per cent of terrestrial, inland water, coastal and marine areas by 2030.

A new report from the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) evaluated the progress of federal, provincial and territorial governments. The report notes major commitments have been made in federal land and ocean protections, and by Nova Scotia, Quebec and the Northwest Territories.

Newfoundland and Labrador, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario are lagging behind other jurisdictions and have “demonstrated little or no commitment to protecting more of their land and have shown minimal interest in pursuing effective and equitable processes for establishing protected areas,” the report says.

About 15 per cent of Alberta’s lands and waters are protected. Up until 2020, the province was “actively participating with the federal government” to advance conservation but has since “really walked back some of their commitments to internationally agreed on protection targets,” said Tara Russell, program director for CPAWS Northern Alberta.

Major concerns raised in the report are threats to headwaters and mountain ranges posed by the province’s new coal policy development, changes to the Parks Act and Public Lands Act that allow for creation of different regulations for different parks or public lands, legislation allowing for protected area designations to be rescinded for all-season resort development, and conservation agreements that are failing to “protect and recover caribou populations.”

Despite these setbacks, Russell said conserving 30 per cent of Alberta’s land and water “absolutely is a viable target. And I think there’s so much opportunity in Alberta to improve conservation.”

Russell gave the examples of proposed expansions to the Gipsy-Gordon Wildland Provincial Park and Kitaskino Nuwenëné Wildland Park as “low-hanging fruit” for conservation. Together, the expansion projects would protect a little less than 200 square kilometres of land. And, having already gone through planning stages, are only waiting for an Order in Council to formally designate the land to the parks.

“It’s like an administrative task that needs to occur now to protect that,” Russell said.

In the case of the Kitaskino Nuwenëné Wildland Park, the protected area has been awaiting the final sign-off from council since 2012.

“It’s such a clear example of how conservation is not a priority. Because I understand it is difficult to get new parks and protected areas in place, and we absolutely need to go through those difficult processes as a province, but we’re also not taking advantage of these very clearly low-hanging-fruit opportunities.”

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