City administration will focus on three core areas for the remainder of 2026, as a primer for 2027 to 2030 budget direction, according to a memo obtained by LWC.

The Priority Implementation document notes the City of Calgary will focus on Public Safety, Transit and Infrastructure for the remainder of 2026, down from eight areas defined in the Corporate Priorities program established in October of 2023.

“Housing, Prairie Economic Gateway, Downtown Strategy, Climate Strategy and Scotia Place transition out of the program, with significant results to-date [sic], providing positive momentum for sustainment within our organization,” the document read.

The change comes as Calgary city council continues to prepare for the 2027 to 2030 budget this November. Earlier this year, city councillors endorsed six priority budget areas.

The admin document suggests they are now evolving the corporate priorities program to align with the council direction and its priority implementation.

“This change reflects the program’s role in providing temporary elevated attention, meant to accelerate implementation of Council’s Priorities, to deliver outcomes for Calgarians,” the document read.

“Priority Implementation will be reduced to three initiatives for the remainder of 2026, to increase focus and achieve better, quicker results for Calgarians.”

While the focus shifts to these priority areas, the memo said that the areas being transitioned out have “significant results to-date,” offering momentum for continuation within the city.

They said that housing continues to achieve record number of starts, occupancies and non-market homes through development permits in 2025. The Prairie Economic Gateway has completed all municipal planning requirements and just needs money from the other orders of government.

As far as the downtown strategy, the City said that property values have increased $1.8 billion since 2022. On climate, they said $250 million in external funding has been secured from other orders of government.

De-prioritization is a matter of perspective, say councillors

While the City of Calgary memo outlined some of the successes, there have already been attempts by the current city council to scale down some of these former priorities.

During the last budget adjustment, there were attempts to end funding for the downtown office conversion program. It was reduced somewhat, receiving $35 million instead of the proposed $40 million.

Climate funding was also cut, with $9 million of $38 million in one-time climate and environment spending sliced out. There were efforts to reduce the climate and environment budget overall. Recently, the City of Calgary also rescinded its climate emergency declaration.

Money from Calgary’s housing strategy was also targeted during last November’s budget, and, of course, Calgary rolled back citywide rezoning. Further, council recently opted not to find additional funding to accelerate Local Area Plans despite that being a primary proposed solution for reaching a new path for established area density.

Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot said it shouldn’t be perceived that these items transitioned off the list are no longer a priority for city council.

“I don’t know if I would interpret it that way. Rather, a lot of these things may already be funded and therefore no longer need to be looked at as a priority because they’ve already been actioned,” he said.

Ward 5 Coun. Raj Dhaliwal said he’s torn between understanding and surprise.

“I’m not surprised, because ideologically there’s some council members who are less keen on supporting housing because it’s not municipal jurisdiction, and climate because there is no such thing as climate change,” he said.

“Then I’m surprised because we also have councillors, and many of them are saying we still want to build housing.”

Dhaliwal said that he worries about the message it sends to other orders of government when they see that something like housing isn’t on the priority implementation list.

“A priority is a priority, and you can only fund something if it’s a part of the priority. If you are telling the rest of the world those are not priorities, we are not the only players in the game,” he said.

“If you want to play the game, we need other partners, and when you tell them that, ‘hey, housing is not our priority, climate is not our priority, hey, economic gateway is not (a priority) well, guess what?  What leverage do you have to compel them to support us?”

The three clear priorities are the top of the top: Coun. Clark

The City of Calgary memo indicated that by prioritizing public transit, public safety and reliable infrastructure, along with growing the city’s economy, they’re offering investors a more predictable and stable community that’s preparing for a potential population of two million people.

“Future updates are expected to align with the new budget cycle in early 2027,” the memo read.

Ward 9 Coun. Harrison Clark said that when you have a City of Calgary-sized budget, there can be a lot of competing priorities; it doesn’t mean that these ones not on the new implementation list aren’t still key cogs in the city’s wheel.

“Now we’re talking about the top of the top, and I think it’s really important to assure Calgarians that these things still hold priority place in our conversations,” he said.

Clark likened it to showing up late to the last councils’ party and being stuck with the bill, saying this current council now has to deal with the decisions made by those before them. He noted things like having a billion-dollar arena but no plan to develop affordable housing, or concerns over losing access to 60 per cent of Calgary’s drinking water.

“Twenty years of mismanagement; 20 years of really bizarre prioritizing,” he said.

“The priorities of the last 20 years have been absurdly out of line with the direction in which we would like to drive this city.”

Even with a stark shift in priorities, Coun. Chabot said it’s going to be hard to turn the ship in one city council term. He’s told his current colleagues that it’s OK to have “audacious” targets, but to temper their expectations.

“You can’t expect Calgarians to pay huge tax increases to try and make up for the deficiencies that have occurred over time,” he said.

“You’ll have to scale it, you’ll have to schedule it, you’ll have to provide maybe a long-term goal, as opposed to trying to fix everything today.”