Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek said that she was feeling “pretty neutral” about how the federal budget might impact the City of Calgary.
On Tuesday, the federal government put forward a 2024 budget that included an additional $53 billion in spending, a $40 billion deficit and a plan to up the take on capital gains.
Among the budget items are $8.5 billion in spending on housing, a bump up to the Canada disability benefit, investment in AI, $1 billion for a national school food program and more funding for youth mental health.
The feds teased the housing cash by making a $6.5 billion cross-Canada housing announcement, including in Calgary, on April 2.
“Budget 2024 renews our focus on unlocking the door to the middle class for millions of younger Canadians,” said Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, in a prepared media release.
“We’ll build more housing and help make life cost less. We will drive our economy toward growth that lifts everyone up. That is fairness for every generation.”
Mayor Gondek said that she figured there would be a strong focus on housing, given the current situation in cities and towns across Canada. One of the measures included in the budget was to free up government offices and government defence lands for additional housing. That could include the lands around the Currie Barracks, but the mayor didn’t have specific details.
“My concern is that while we are focused on 60 plus people that are moving here every day, and we need to make sure we’ve got housing for all of them, there are people who have lived in the city for a long time, they’re struggling with affordability, and with housing,” the mayor said.
“So, we need to make sure that this federal budget is focused on everyone.”
No funding plan for municipalities
Mayor Gondek said that she would have liked to see a system by which you could see directly how the federal government was funding cities.
“We need to have more reliability, predictability and how they fund municipalities,” she said.
“That’s something that should be done in concert with the provincial governments as well.”
On that note, Mayor Gondek said she hopes that all three levels of government can work together to address the needs of the Calgarians. She said Minister Jason Nixon has said on several occasions that he’s committed to more housing and wants to work with the municipalities.
To that end, the mayor hopes that the recent proposed provincial legislation doesn’t hamper the potential flow of federal capital to Calgary. Nor the pending decision on citywide rezoning, which has been tied to federal housing cash.
“One of the things that we do as a city is we make sure that funding streams that are available to us are ones that actually work for us,” she said.
“So, we make sure that any conditions that are attached or something that we can actually deliver on. We’re very careful about that.”
