Coun. Courtney Walcott warned the city may need to consider other options to not turn people away, such as raising transit fares for non-subsidized passholders or cuts to another program or service
The motion failed in a 7-7 vote to direct administration to bring forward a new operating investment of $14 million for the subsidized pass, to be included in November’s annual budget deliberations.
Ward 8 Coun. Courtney Walcott, who moved the item, said the additional funds are needed to sustain the program, which provides tens of thousands of low-income Calgarians a reduced rate on monthly transit passes.
The city spends just under $32 million annually to subsidize the pass, which operates on a sliding scale based on three income “bands.” Riders who earn the least pay just $5.80 for a monthly transit pass, while those in the next band pay $40.25 and those in the next pay $57.50 a month.
A regular monthly transit pass costs $115.
Walcott argued the program’s increased use necessitates additional funding.
Without it, he warned the city may need to consider other options to not turn people away, such as raising transit fares for non-subsidized passholders or cuts to another program or service.
“That $14 million is just to cover the growth of the program,” Walcott said. “That growth is not a good thing. It’s a growth in people who are low-income and who require support on our transit.”
Councillors Walcott, Evan Spencer, Kourtney Penner, Richard Pootmans, Gian-Carlo Carra, Jasmine Mian and Mayor Jyoti Gondek voted in favour. Raj Dhaliwal was the only councillor absent.
Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot, who voted in opposition alongside councillors Sean Chu, Peter Demong, Dan McLean, Jennifer Wyness, Sonya Sharp and Terry Wong, said low-income subsidy programs are in the Alberta government’s purview.
“I think this is way more than we should expect Calgary taxpayers to pay when they’re already paying lots of provincial taxes that should ultimately be the entity that pays for this income support,” he said.
While it’s a city-run program, the province has provided a $4.5-million grant to support Calgary’s subsidized transit pass since 2017.
Council also voted 13-1 on Tuesday to advocate to the provincial government to increase how much it subsidizes the program, along with a longer duration funding agreement.
Mayor Jyoti Gondek announced on April 30 that the province would be pulling its annual funding of the low-income transit pass program. She slammed Premier Danielle Smith and the province at the time, calling the cut “unconscionable” and the timing “terrible,” considering the program’s growth.
Meaghon Reid, the executive director of Vibrant Communities Calgary — a non-profit that stewards the city’s poverty reduction strategy — said council’s decision begs the question of how the city is going to accommodate the ever-increasing number of people who are eligible for subsidized transit.
“We know almost 130,000 Calgarians are using this pass,” she said. “We can only expect that number to grow over at least the next year while things start to level out in terms of inflation, interest rates and that sort of thing.
“The question remains — how are we going to make sure those folks are covered?”
A briefing note from the July 23 executive committee meeting indicated there has been a 16 per cent increase in Fair Entry applications for the pass (nearly 11,000 more individuals) and a 10 per cent increase in approvals (6,000 individuals) in the first six months of this year, compared to the same time period in 2023.
The increases are influenced by various factors, according to the report, such as the low income threshold increasing by almost four per cent, resulting in more eligible Calgarians.
With Calgary Transit’s lowest-earning passholders paying just shy of $6 a month, Reid said the city was a trailblazer in establishing such an accessible subsidized transit pass.
But she acknowledged that is a nation-leading discount, and with both council and the province appearing unwilling to commit more funding, the most likely outcome to sustain the program is to raise transit fares.
“For city council, I can see how there might be room there to manoeuvre in terms of slightly increasing that cost to keep pace with other cities across Canada, and to hopefully have some cost recovery so we can make sure everyone who needs it can get on the pass,” she said.
“We’re just in really new waters when it comes to how many people are becoming eligible for low-income programs.”