Officials from a number of rural municipalities went to the legislature this week to tell the UCP government that they can't handle any more cut, and they're feeling fed up. 

Stettler County Reeve Larry Clarke said they've already had to absorb the costs of a number of tax-write incentives for large companies and structural changes to service model funding. 

"The tax assessment model for oil and gas was brought forward to us late this week, just prior to summer recess for parliament. in doing that, parliament gave us about 5 weeks to lobby to bring our voices forward before fall session - that was a really short timeline, and we thought we'd have time to bring our concerns before the Legislative assembly, but they recessed the day before, " Clarke explained. 

"We went up there to show our members of parliament what the thoughts were from the rural municipalities on how all of these things will affect rural communities."

The damaging policies Clarke is referring to include a 35 per cent tax reduction for shallow gas well companies (which cost Stettler County approximately $800,000), the new Rural Policing Model (which increases their county's cost from $145,000 to $450,000 by 2023) and now, they are expecting another $2.7 million dollars in tax write-offs for major oil companies - all of these UCP Government initiatives will download costs onto rural tax payers and municipalities. 

"To the County of Stettler's budget, it would reduce our tax revenue by $3.5-4 million for the 2020 tax year, which is payable in 2021. That's in addition to an approximately $4 million loss that we've taken over the last couple of years, a lot of that reflecting on oil and gas. We would be looking at an overall tax decrease of approximately $7-8 million, which is approximately a third of our operating budget."

Officials from Stettler County, Camrose County, and North Sunrise County all gathered to share their concerns on the steps of the Alberta Legislature.

Clarke said there a few options that come as a result of losing the income provided by businesses and corporations that have tax reductions. 

One of those options is to decrease services such as road grading, road maintenance, community partnerships with surrounding municipalities, landscaping and more. The other option is to increase the taxes that are due by residents. 

Unfortunately, Clarke said that taxpayers have already seen an increase due to disputes between companies using farmland or otherwise privately owned land to operate on. 

"To tie to our urban neighbours, every agreement that we have for recreation and everything, we'd have to look at again because of the amount of money we would have. It would affect our kids, it affects all of our services - this is critical," he said. 

The demonstration in front of the Legislature was organized by Northern Sunrise County Reeve and officials, and featured support from the County of Stettler and the County of Camrose. 

Rural Alberta is made up of municipal districts, counties or 'special areas'. Clarke explained that those 'special areas' are run by the Provincial Government, with people still paying taxes but having no local elected representation in the form of a Council. 

"We have counties in the province right now that are steps away from handing over their keys and leadership to the provincial government and becoming a special area."

"If we tried to offer the same level of services without making changes such as (tax increases or service level decreases), we would have approximately 22 months and we would be in the same position."

Moving Forward from Here

Clarke said he will be meeting with MLA Nate Horner on Tuesday to discuss the effects of the proposed tax cuts for oil and gas companies. In Stettler, a meeting will be held that invites all local municipality representatives from within his constituency. 

"One of the biggest concerns I have is that this tax break is going to help about four of the major oil and gas companies to Alberta. In doing that, it could bring industry into Alberta, but it doesn't guarantee those savings stay in Alberta. It could be put to shareholders - there is no control or mandate on where (those savings) have to go. No taxpayer in Alberta is going to benefit from this, other than if  you're working directly in that industry or some business comes to our province,"  Clarke said.

"As far as these recent tax breaks go, they will go to large oil companies, and in our area, we have a lot of small and medium oil companies and these tax breaks will not benefit them whatsoever. If anything, it's going to hinder them because their taxes are going to go up."

He said if these proposed tax cuts are implemented, it will also ruin the relationships between the County and urban partners like the Town of Stettler because they are joint partners for fire services, ambulance services and recreation services. 

"If we cannot increase those costs, or if we had to turn our keys over the government, we are in turn telling our urban partners that we have no idea what we can pay or who is going to pay for those services being brought into our area."