[GullFoss]

I feel that a lot of people confuse municipal spending with how municipal taxes are assessed.

Are taxes too high? Figure out the city budget and divide it by the number of residents. That's spending per capita. Then compare that to other jurisdictions like Edmonton, Ottawa, Vancouver, Toronto and winnipeg. And make adjustments for city density or number of kids or whatever if you want to get granular. But in broad strokes, thats the only way to assess municipal spending levels.

Here's some 2012 data I found for operating budget per capita:

Winnipeg - $1350
Vancouver - $1450
Calgary - $1575
Edmonton - $1625
Victoria - $1625
Quebec City - $2050
Ottawa - $2300
Toronto - $2800
Montreal - $2850

I would say the relative value-for-money in Calgary looks pretty good. I mean, Winnipeg is lower but also has a much lower cost of living. Vancouver is lower but has huge density benefits and also a much lower proportion of school kids and also a number of people who pay property tax but use no services (because they live in China). Meanwhile in Calgary, spending is pretty low, especially when considering lack of density and how many kids there are in school (young demographics).

Everything after spending per capita is just a debate about how the taxes to pay for those services are allocated across the population.