Calgary Minute: Businesses Struggling, LRT Delayed, and Paying More For Everything

Calgary Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of Calgary politics

This Week In Calgary:

• Happy Easter! We hope you had a good weekend, whether you were able to visit with family or not. Given the long weekend, and today being a holiday for many, this week is set to be pretty quiet at City Hall.
  
  
• On Wednesday at 9:30 am, there will be a meeting of the Standing Policy Committee on Planning and Urban Development. The Committee will discuss "Lifting Specific Use Restrictions in the Airport Vicinity Protection Area", the "Designation of 26 Historic Streetscapes as Municipal Historic Resources", and "Calgary's Greater Downtown Plan Roadmap to Reinvention".
  
  
• On Thursday at 1:00 pm, there will be a meeting of the Calgary Planning Commission which will debate a number of land-use amendments, some proposed street names, and a development permit in Medicine Hills.

Last Week In Calgary:

• A Calgary Chamber of Commerce commissioned poll reported that 71% of businesses have seen their revenue drop by an average of 49% since the start of the pandemic. Although the poll results also showed that a majority of Calgary businesses have received some form of government support, these handouts don't even come close to compensating for the lost business. Optimism is also up in the survey though, based on assumptions that the end of the pandemic is, hopefully, just on the horizon.
  
  
• The start of construction for the Green Line LRT is now delayed until at least 2022, as the Province continues to assess the viability of the City's plan. If approved, the project would be the largest in Calgary's history, and with a price tag of $5.5 billion (at least as of the last count), it's no wonder the Province wants to do a more thorough inspection. With the construction start now delayed until after the October municipal election, there's also no longer any reason not to hold a referendum on the future of the project in conjunction with the October vote, as we have been calling for in our ongoing petition, which you can sign here.
  
  
• Finally, Calgarians can expect to pay more for everything thanks to yet another hike in the federal carbon tax that kicked in last Thursday. The latest increase will directly add another 2.3 cents to the cost of each litre of gasoline, plus all sorts of indirect increases on other goods that must be transported to shops and consumers. At least Canada's original carbon tax, winter, is almost over!

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