• Proposed Community Revitalization Levy is a tax hike in disguise
• Every new Canadian NHL arena built in the past two decades has been virtually 100 per cent privately financed

EDMONTON: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) is calling on Edmonton city council to reject the proposal to fund a new downtown NHL arena using a little-known tax-trick called a Community Revitalization Levy (CRL).

“Proponents of the CRL like to claim that it’s essentially ‘free’ money because it comes from the taxes on ‘new’ buildings next to the arena. In reality, it’s just a shift of where those buildings would get built anyway or where the money is spent right now,” said CTF-Alberta director Scott Hennig.

“The CRL also makes the false economic assumption that you can just build new businesses and the demand for their products or services will magically increase all across the city. If people are going to some hot new bar next to the arena, it means they are no longer going to some bar on Whyte Ave,” continued Hennig. “It’s just a shift of where the money is getting spent.”

Under a CRL, additional property taxes (both local and provincial education) collected inside the Community Revitalization Zone would go to pay off a loan on the new arena. The shortfall outside of the zone would have to either be made up in higher property taxes or in cuts to services.

“This tax-trick makes it look like new businesses are paying for the arena, when in reality it’s actually taxpayers from across the entire city,” said Hennig. “This type of accounting would make the boys at Enron proud.”

The CTF is also hopeful that Edmonton city council will pick fully private financing of the arena as their primary option. Despite the information being intentionally removed from the Mayor’s Leadership Committee report on a new arena, all four of the NHL arenas built in Canada in the past 20 years have been virtually 100 per cent privately financed.

“It’s not that arenas can’t or aren’t privately financed, in fact that’s the norm in Canada. It’s that professional sports teams in the United States have successfully squeezed taxpayers to buy them new arenas and clearly that’s what Daryl Katz wants to try in Edmonton,” concluded Hennig. “Let’s not forget professional sports and concerts aren’t a charity, this new building is a for-profit business.”