Calgary city councillors approved a tweaked motion that would still clarify the order of government responsible for funding requests, but deviated from defining core city services.

The motion, originally dubbed “Clarifying government roles and The City of Calgary’s Core mandate,” was initially put forward by members of the Communities First party, including Couns. Sonya Sharp, Dan McLean, Terry Wong, and Andre Chabot.

It called for a chart that showed graphics similar to what’s included in the Municipal Fiscal Gap report, including outlining which functions are municipal, provincial or federal, or a shared responsibility.

It also asked for future city admin reports to include a clear jurisdictional labelling of whether the item was a core city responsibility, a shared responsibility, or not aligned with the city’s core responsibility.

Coun. Sharp said that there’s been a lot of talk about responsibilities being downloaded to the City of Calgary and having to pay for things that aren’t within the city’s mandate.

“Our mandate under the MGA is thin, so we are not really reinventing the wheel, but really what we’re doing is asking administration, every time they come forward with a report, and what we direct them to do is just let us know as a council, is this a city role,” she said.

That was the crux of Tuesday’s debate, which included the city solicitor Jill Floen framing the City of Calgary’s ‘core responsibilities.’ She said the Municipal Government Act doesn’t define what core services are for a municipality.

“It includes providing good government, providing services, facilities or other things that, in the opinion of council are necessary or desirable for all or part of the municipality, maintaining and developing safe and viable communities, among other things,” she said.

“Essentially, everything that the City of Calgary is doing is either mandated by legislation, is practically necessary; for example, different functions to run the organization, or council has found it desirable to step into, so therefore is a power duty and function of the municipality. So, everything that we’re doing right now is a core responsibility based on those basic premises.”

Clarity sought, said Coun. Wong

Ward 7 Coun. Terry Wong said that the question of who should pay for what it is a common one when he’s out in the community.

“When we put forward this most motion, we put forward with the general intent of clarity, not only for administration and clarity for us, but also clarity for the public, to ensure that they understand, where we weigh in, where we should be influencing, where we should be staying out of,” he said.

Ward 8 Coun. Walcott said every time the city gets into an argument over spending money it comes down to a debate over responsibility.

“Even with the movers of this motion, there’s conflict between what we think we should be doing, or how we should be determining what is a core municipal responsibility, because it doesn’t actually exist,” he said.

“What I actually think is happening here, and this is why the second resolution is so challenging, is it’s just a demonstration of a constant frustration of not being able to cut taxes.”

Ward 11 Coun. Kourtney Penner put forward an amended motion which would have Alberta Municipalities present data on municipal financial research, create the chart outlining percentage of funding from other orders of government with shared responsibilities and, beginning with the 2026 budget adjustments, note funding requests required from other orders of government that result in a loss of funding, are part of shared responsibility, or part of matching funding. 

The latter is similar to a motion that came during a recent strategic budget meeting of council.

Penner said that she understood the spirit of the original motion in being honest about where dollars are going and what the City of Calgary is funding. She said, however, there’s only one order of government falling short in the municipal funding gap: The province.

“When we talk about other orders of government, I think it’s really important, and I think it’s important that we know the split and the breakdown on a lot of this,” Penner said.

While the motions were very similar, with the core responsibilities definition stripped out, the Communities First candidates voted against. The motion passed 8-6.