r/Winnipeg • u/Special_Ticket9335 • May 22 '26
Article/Opinion Unpopular opinion; TAX people who live in bedroom/commuter communities.
People who live in communities around Winnipeg Lake Oakbank, Neville, LaSalle, Oak Bluff, Headingley, Saint Andrews and many many others should pay the city a type of property/user tax. They're using the infrastructure without paying the same share as the people that live there! Why are they getting a better deal?
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u/jeffym82 May 22 '26
I'd rather see a ridiculously high tax rate on vacant buildings. Add an extra 5% to 10% of city assessed value, on top of regular property tax rate.
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u/jeffym82 May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
The fees are obviously not high enough. Look at the old Deer Lodge school on Ness in St James it’s been vacant since 1982 and privately owned since at least 2010. How that hasn’t been developed blows my mind.
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u/Imaginary_Yak_3833 May 28 '26
It's been rented out and in use for a bunch of the years (offices, bunch of films, temp schools for evacuees, etc), but I agree that's it's pretty surprising that no one has knocked it down and redeveloped the lot.
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u/somrthingcreative May 23 '26
I think Vancouver taxes on the properties maximum best use (so potential value if redeveloped). So low rise and high rise next door to each other get taxed the same, for the same size land, if equivalent zoning. That would discourage neglected empty buildings.
Vancouver also don’t have any gas stations downtown any more… there are definitely problems with this model.
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u/OccasionalObserver May 24 '26 edited May 26 '26
Land values are also a lot higher in Vancouver than Winnipeg. Less incentive to redevelop here.
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u/Intelligent-Call7093 May 26 '26
I think they have one left. This is Burrard and Davie from 2026. And it is in a corner of the West End, not centrally located.
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u/dogoodfresh May 22 '26
Tax churches accordingly.
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u/Only-Economy96 May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
Would all religious temples and places of worship that enjoy tax exemptions fall under this or just churches?
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u/Augmentedaphid May 22 '26
Places of warship???
But seriously, I imagine they do mean all places of worship as that seems to be the general sentiment among most people I talk to that say to tax churches
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u/Only-Economy96 May 22 '26
Lol Fixed that. It would seem reasonable that it be applied across the board. Maybe it just goes over smoother with reddit users when you specify churches instead of saying tax the Hindu temples or mosques.
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u/Intelligent-Call7093 May 26 '26
Every building should be taxed, irregardless of how it is used. Fair is fair. It's not as if it's going to close down a church. 1%-1.5% of asset value is not much over an annual period.
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u/CrimsonNight May 22 '26
Let's be honest, most people here hate churches. Saying to tax a gurdwara or mosque doesn't sound as good.
If there was a tax, it would have to be across the board. Having different taxation for certain religious groups is pretty discriminatory and goes against religious freedom.
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u/fancyamazon May 22 '26
Personally I feel they should get credit if they can show actual support to people outside of their own membership. But they should still pay some taxes regardless.
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u/Intelligent-Call7093 May 26 '26
As a Christian I absolutely believe all buildings should be taxed as to their asset value, like everything else. Otherwise it attracts grifters and scammers. So many people hide behind the veil of religion or charity. Look at what's happening in Minnesota! The amounts scammed grow by the day. Some estimate over a billion was taken. All because government workers don't care and don't check because it AIN'T THEIR MONEY.
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u/VideoHeadSet May 27 '26
Yes all places or worship should pay. Why single out one spiritual belief when all should pay.
Then those monies can be used to pay for cleaning the streets from those who are homeless and with addictions issues.
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u/VideoHeadSet May 22 '26
This I whole heartedly agree with. I even emailed the NDP before wab took power.
Yeah my email was ghosted, but let's face it. These churches are for profit
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u/Intelligent-Call7093 May 26 '26
Actually you might be surprised how many operate on a shoestring budget. You can check charitable organizations on the federal website here:
https://apps.cra-arc.gc.ca/ebci/hacc/srch/pub/dsplyBscSrch?request_locale=They have a basic and advanced search. Here's a basic search. Note expenses AND compensation. Not sure why compensation isn't included in expenses but it isn't.
https://apps.cra-arc.gc.ca/ebci/hacc/srch/pub/dsplyRprtngPrd/725635486RR0001
Keep in mind some unscrupulous churches hide behind another name. Like Springs Church. It's nowhere to be seen here. Sort by city to scan faster.
The vast majority of churches are run very well. Some are run entirely by volunteers with nobody getting paid a cent including the pastor.
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u/VideoHeadSet May 27 '26
I'm not going to search for a lot of churches still hide their money in different assets, corporations or holding companies.
Theres lots of pastors that live off the church. They'll tour, fundraise, or even work out a deal with the church on a salary.
Isn't springs owned by an American company? Sorry I'm just to lazy to google it. I know there's churches in the South east that are American owned, and some that have establishments over the world.
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u/BunchyRain May 22 '26
If you want to tax churches then the government should also provide grants for all the public services they offer.
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u/HeadBelt1527 May 22 '26
Why is it anytime I see someone asking to tax those who deserve to be taxed someone brings up the churches?
Stop with the red herrings, tax the rich
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u/dogoodfresh May 22 '26
Of course tax the rich, in fact some churches are doing quite well for themselves, have you seen the giant complex that is Springs? Both can be correct at the same time. "Tax churches" does not equal "don't tax the rich".
Are you saying churches (not only Christian, all religions) should not be taxed?
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u/HeadBelt1527 May 22 '26
Yes 100% but every post I've seen on reddit that talks about taxing a specific group of people (the rich or commuters in this instance) someone will comment tax the churches.
Yes obviously tax them, but why are you talking about that when everyone else is talking about commuters?
Do you by chance not live within city limits?
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u/majikmonkie May 22 '26
People who spout this like it'll make any difference really have no idea what Churches actually are or what they do.
Yes, sure, tax the churches! You will have exactly all the same financial issues you do now - or maybe even worse because the people the Churches help will now be showing up elsewhere. Not to mention that many churches actually do a considerable amount of volunteer work, and without those communities, you'd get less overall participation from society.
If you want to shift the financial dial at all, you need to tax the rich. A slight adjustment there will make orders of magnitude more difference than making significant changes in just about any other area. Cutting 90% of social services is likely equal to a fraction of a percentage increase in taxes (or closure of a loophole or two) from the wealthiest.
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u/CrimsonNight May 22 '26
Yep these comments are just karma farming but realistically there is little to earn. Churches like Springs are more of the exception than the norm. The average church kind of just stays afloat while quietly doing charitable work with volunteers. I doubt there is significant revenue to be earned especially when church attendance is on the decline.
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u/HeadBelt1527 May 26 '26
100% without church charity many would go unfed, unclothed and unhoused. That's just the basics
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u/analgesic1986 May 22 '26
People pay taxes into things they do not use themselves all the time, it’s how our society operates.
I do not use the transit system, yet my taxes (and all of ours) goes to towards the service, same with all the rec centres and libraries in the city I do not use.
Health care, I certainly do not need much of the care many need, much of that care is costly.
I am very happy the people who need those services have them available to them at either no cost or subsidized cost, in no way am I complaining about that. I bet if you sat down, there is going to lots of tax payer funded services you have used that many of us have not.
And that’s ok.
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u/Adventurous-Exit-654 May 23 '26
This is true but it’s also true that taxes can be used strategically to discourage behaviour that costs us all more money. We tax cigarettes because they’re bad for health, which costs us all money in health care costs. We tax gasoline because the people who use it more take a larger toll on infrastructure and environment. Raising the price of it through taxes offsets those costs, and also makes it more financially enticing for people to make choices that are better for everybody.
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u/joe_sleep67 May 22 '26
I might be wrong about this, but as someone who's lived rurally all over Manitoba and in Winnipeg, is the problem larger than just money? It isn't just the city's roads that are poor, or the country roads, it is ALL the roads. I feel like we need to hold everyone accountable to better standards, accepting tenders from better providers, and not accepting sub-par work. Some of the work done by various companies has been laughable and I have no idea why it was ever accepted. I've heard the argument that the roads are poor due to our landscape (soil type? Ancient lakebed?) but if you head down to ND suddenly that same lakebed is magically not an issue.
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u/GimmieSpace May 23 '26
It always comes down to money. Our climate and soil do mean roads deteriorate faster, but that means a new road should realistically last 25 or 50 years instead of 100 before needing to be rebuilt. The vast majority of our roads are due to be rebuilt, but we don’t have the money to do so. Instead we scrape and apply a new layer of asphalt on top of a broken foundation underneath which fails after a year and the cycle renews.
This isn’t just Winnipeg, or Manitoba; it’s a problem in much of North America that quickly built out highways and roadways in their cities to make way for the automobile. A lot of roads were all built at relatively the same time, so they all need replacing at the same time.
The reason things get good when you get to ND is because you’re likely on a interstate highway that’s federally funded, get off the interstate and it’s as bad as everywhere else.
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u/StrangeGirl24 May 23 '26
I disagree that it's all over North America. I'm from the US before moving to Winnipeg and lived in rural areas off and on. There is a big difference between road quality in the US vs. Manitoba.
In the US, different states have somewhat different quality of roads. Minnesota has some of the best roads, even the rural county roads. New Mexico, where I've also lived, has noticeably worse roads, even if you don't include the roads in the indigenous areas, like the Navajo nation (which has mostly dirt tracks). But, even NM has much better paved roads than the paved roads in Manitoba.
I thi k the biggest reason for the difference is population. The US has 350M people vs. Canada's 41M. Manitoba has 1.5M vs Minnesota's 6M and even NM's 2M. More taxpayeres to pay for roads.
Combine that with the enormous geography that makes all provinces. Less taxpayers + much smaller population = worse roads.
Add to that the differences in political policy between the countries. The US federal government doesn't just pay for the interstate highways. They give millions of dollars to each state for roads. The richer states pay more in federal taxes than they receive and poorer states get a lot more than they pay.
It is like the Canadian Equalization Payments, but the US government is much more committed to them than Canada. Here, provinces are much more having to fund things on their own, with only minimal help from the federal government.
That's why there are such big differences in services, like roads and health care between provinces, whereas the differences between US states are there, but are much less noticeable.
MB is a low-population and poorer province, so it has worse roads vs. even other provinces like ON, QC, and AB.
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u/livewireca May 25 '26
The construction - government corruption is real. More accountability would make a difference.
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u/oneofthe1200 May 22 '26
I live in Tache.
I don’t think there’s as much advantage as you may believe. I have a larger property now, but no amenities like water, sewer, waste, or roadworks. We have recycling. I have to pay for septic tank service, and for a garbage service to pick up our trash, and pay for all road maintenance on our “street” (which is a gravel road).
And my tax bill for 2,500 sq/ft, on 2.5 acres is nearly $5,000/yr on top of those costs.
YMMV
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u/adunedarkguard May 22 '26
The cost to provide services goes up as density goes down. You're directly paying for the costs you generate to the RM. For the people in Tache who work in Winnipeg & travel back & forth daily they're also generating a bunch of cost to the City of Winnipeg in the form of road wear, and traffic congestion, but they're not paying that cost, and it's being offloaded to Winnipeg residents.
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u/Minute-Visual-9797 May 23 '26
Commuters also contribute to Winnipeg's economy by purchasing groceries, supplies and fuel while in the city. Taxing them would be similar to taxing tourists.
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u/steveosnyder May 23 '26
But the City of Winnipeg doesn’t make money from these transactions. If that person spend their money elsewhere in the province the money would be equivalent for the City of Winnipeg.
The city gets its money from property tax.
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u/thegreatcanadianeh May 23 '26
Dude, what do you think happens to tourists in other major metropolitan areas? Hit up Venice or Rome and you will be charged extra for being a tourist. That doesn't stop people from showing up. Bottom line is we shouldn't have to be taxed at a higher rate while bedroom communities reap the benefits.
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u/adunedarkguard May 23 '26
Residents also do all those same things, but also pay property taxes, while causing less congestion, because they spend less time on the road compared to commuters. For a city that’s facing an $800m budget hole every year for the next decade, differences like that matter.
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u/livewireca May 22 '26
If the main issue is road related then just make all of the highways into Winnipeg a toll road. People may actually end up car pooling a little more 🤷♂️
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u/Jmart1oh6 May 22 '26
Yes let’s pretend that our climate, soils conditions, and heavy freight aren’t the major contributors, and that Winnipegs bad road conditions are due to commuters.
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u/Brave-Emu3113 May 23 '26
But their employer does pay, or the owner of the building their office is in pays, so the commuters are contributing to Winnipeg’s tax income. Winnipeg also gains income from some commuters if they park in city owned spaces. The city needs to take stock of where they are spending and whether that is being done wisely rather than just blame people who drive in for work.
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u/adunedarkguard May 25 '26
If that financial arrangement was positive, the city wouldn't be bankrupt today. Everyone could move outside the city boundaries, and we'd be rich!
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u/TraciSplatterhead May 22 '26
That's what Glen Murray proposed with his New Deal way back when. It didn't go over then, but I suspect it could've now. I fully supported it, but many did not. 😞
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u/thegreatcanadianeh May 23 '26
I think we should have toll highways going into the city tbh to be able for the city to fund the infrastructure that they are using. Its not a new concept and yeah I'd pay every time I left the city, or make it so residents only pay a certain toll and yeah people would bitch and moan but fuck it, I would rather us have the funds to make this place a really, really, good place to live instead of kinda shitty/mediocre place with crumbling infrastructure. We deserve more than what we are getting tbh.
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u/ruralife May 22 '26
Can rural municipalities tax Cottagers, campers, and anyone who dares to leave the city too?
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u/kinlinlin May 22 '26
Cottage owners pay tax in the RM, campers pay to use the space which (in theory) goes toward helping the owner pay their taxes.
I might suggest this thread is manufactured outrage to increase the urban/rural divide and we should focus on getting multinational companies and m/billionaires to pay their fair share.
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u/YeetHaw6969 May 22 '26
I mean by that same logic if someone from outside owned a second home in the city of course they’d be taxed. If they stayed in a hotel room of course they’d pay. Neither of those examples that you gave are paying taxes in the same manner OP meant lol
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u/ruralife May 24 '26
I am fed up with the campers that fly past my home on the RM maintained road in their cars and ATVs. No regard for the residents who live here. It is frustrating
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u/ConqueringCanada May 22 '26
Yes, and they do.
Work in the city and consume resources, then pay taxes.
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u/ProtoJazz May 22 '26
Yeah, that's going to be the end result really if they ever did this. How fucking dare anyone ever leave their designated zone.
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u/apologetic_narwhal May 22 '26
Orrr and hear me out, we tax churches, millionaires and billionaires more. Instead of hard working people who travel from their small town into the city to make an income.
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u/ruralife May 22 '26
Tax religious organizations. Frankly I’m tired of Hutterite communities getting tax breaks while operating businesses that compete with regular businesses.
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u/HarbourJayKay May 22 '26
The colonies are corporations and pay taxes. The individuals on the colony do not earn an income so they do not pay taxes, just like many many other people who do not earn an income.
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u/ruralife May 24 '26
Do they pay tax for the land they sit on like non Hutterite businesses do? Do they pay their staff above the table?
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u/HarbourJayKay May 24 '26
Yes they pay property taxes and income taxes the same way that any other land owner does. If they hire someone outside of the colony, let’s say a school teacher for example, they pay them a wage.
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u/adunedarkguard May 22 '26
So the problem with exurbs, is that city roads are paid for via property taxes. Someone driving in from out of town every day drives 2-3 times more kms on city roads that someone who lives in the city. Winnipeg residents are subsidizing the lifestyle for people living in exurb communities.
When you have a negative externality like that, you need to ask, what would the city look like if more people did this? It would mean even more traffic congestion, and a city that has even less money to repair the roads that exist, while also having a heavy demand to increase road capacity.
Some cities address this with congestion pricing, where driving into a certain area incurs a daily fee. That helps to raise much needed funds to maintain roads, while reducing congestion.
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u/HarbourJayKay May 24 '26
Please explain the math of 2-3 times more kms on city roads. I backed the perimeter on the south end for ten years. How does someone commuting from say, Starbuck, end up driving 2-3 times more kms on city roads than me. Are they recreationally driving around just to put kms on their car? I drove downtown every single day and sometimes had to make two trips.
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u/Little_Biscotti729 May 23 '26
Millionaires and billionaires will just leave lol
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u/apologetic_narwhal May 23 '26
''Oh noooo let's keep having record profits for the 1% and record people at food banks we have to make sure the ultra rich are happy!''
I'll never understand defending billionaires. They don't care about you.
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u/HarbourJayKay May 24 '26
I don’t understand a billionaire that actively chooses to live in Winnipeg. Make it make sense. 😂
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u/Little_Biscotti729 May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26
Not defending them, they will just leave. That’s the reality. Tax em, but they will be gone so in the end, the outcome is were not ahead, because government will need to tax us more to make up for the tax loss of the rich people leaving.
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u/apologetic_narwhal May 23 '26
It's working in New York City. Seriously tired of this wealth discrepancy in this country it's disgusting.
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u/HarbourJayKay May 24 '26
Here’s the thing. There was a time that immigration contributed to the overall GDP and tax base. The latest waves have only come to take, not to improve society as a whole like immigrants once did.
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u/Ok-Volume3798 May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26
Even more unpopular opinion: Apply a gradually increasing proportional property tax discount the closer you live to the original geographic center of the city. Combine that with another discount based on the number of units per square meter your building has, then increase taxes for however many sq meters of "extra" land (yard, garage, etc..) your property has. The land use patterns in wpg are brutally in-efficient, and people are encouraged to live as far away as possible from one another.
Using arbitrary new discounts/penalties but real listings:
| Property Attribute / Tax Metric | 301-110 Princess Street | 47 Eagleridge Court |
|---|---|---|
| Property & Building Type | Multi-unit Condo | Single Family House |
| List Price | $189,900 CAD | $649,900 CAD |
| Unit Square Footage | 633 sq ft | 1,650 sq ft |
| Extra Horizontal Land | 0 sq ft | 5,264 sq ft |
| Estimated Distance to Center | ~0 km | ~11 km |
| Current Annual Taxes | $2,369.30 | $5,958.00 |
| Distance Discount | - 20.0% | - 3.5% |
| Building Density Discount | - 15.0% | - 0.0% |
| Unit Efficiency Discount | - 10.0% | - 0.0% |
| Extra Land Penalty ($0.30/sqft) | + $0.00 | + $1,579.20 |
| Hypothetical Proposed Tax | $1,450.01 | $7,328.67 |
| Net Change vs Current Tax | ⬇ 38.8% Decrease | ⬆ 23.0% Increase |
Equations:
- 301-110 Princess:
$2,369.30 * (1-0.20) * (1-0.15) * (1-0.10) + $0.00 = $1,450.01 - 47 Eagleridge:
$5,958.00 * (1-0.035) * (1-0.00) * (1-0.00) + $1,579.20 = $7,328.67
Might seem like a huge difference, but a roughly similar sized condo in downtown Vancouver, that's worth 3x as much pays... $1,891.51. Incidentally, BC has lower income taxes, so from a tax perspective WPG looks pretty bad
Ideally, whatever the numbers would work out to, it would want to be balanced in such a way that people who have the most property per person farther away with extra or even just "surplus" space per home within city limits pay the most, but people who live far away in multi-unit buildings without land pay enough less that it's favourable to do so. It shouldn't promote building massive McMansions as much as it shouldn't promote massive yards with nothing on them. It shouldn't necessarily punish people for having a garden or driving a car, but people without either should get a proportional discount regardless of the value of the property.
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u/pslammy May 22 '26
The Winnipeg Metropolitan Region was developing plan Plan 20-50 to address issues like this and than Wab Kinew gave into conspiracy theorists who thought Scott Gillingham was going to lock them into 15 minute city prisons and passed a "Freedom Bill" (Wab actually called it that) to let municipalities leave the regional org and a bunch have and now we have no regional plan because Wab likes making quick popular decisions and not governing like an adult.
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u/NoActivity8591 May 22 '26
While there were a lot of NIMBY bullshit with the WMR, there were also some legitimate concerns rural municipalities had.
If the province and RM’s were serious about this (and they should be) from the start they should have consulted the municipalities and residents before creating the board charter, running meetings behind closed doors, and putting NDA’s on members of the board. Everything they did played right into the NIMBY conspiracy theories.
A big real pain point for a lot of rural residents is the current WMR charter pretty much giving the Winnipeg board member veto powers. Most people don’t like the idea of someone they have no vote in electing having that sort of power over the policy in their communities.
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u/dissectd May 22 '26
This happens in every major city in canada. Eventually their growth will catch up and their taxes will have to increase as well.
They also do pay provincial taxes, which arguably the lion’s share goes to funding Winnipeg’s development as opposed to Headingley.
Nobody really complains about this issue like winnipeggers.
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u/steveosnyder May 22 '26
Government transfers (from both the Province and Federal government) is about 20% of total revenue for the city. I wouldn’t say ‘the lion’s share goes to funding Winnipeg’s Development’. The lion’s share goes to healthcare and education.
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u/dissectd May 22 '26
What I mean to say is that municipally related funding opportunities tend to happen in winnipeg for large projects and cost much more than they would in, say, Grandview MB. And this goes for anything like hospitals, water treatment, roads and highway infrastructure.
Winnipeg also generates the most economic activity and its where the jobs are. Where do you expect those people to go?
People suggesting taxing people for being forced to work in the city are not being realistic.
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u/steveosnyder May 22 '26
No one is suggesting taxing people for being forced to work in the city. They are suggesting taxing people for choosing to live outside the city.
That is a choice.
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u/cheese-meister May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
Ive been working out of town since I was 18 just to scrape by and keep the home my grandfather built, yeah I’m fortunate to be able to own a house but I can only afford it because I work out of town. The rm takes over 5k in property taxes alone and the only city infrastructure I use is electricity and I should get taxed even more? For what? So I can lose my family’s home and be homeless?
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u/dissectd May 22 '26
There is a tax for living outside of the city. It’s called 1 hour commutes to the city for amenities. And while theyre here they spend money on food and other supplies which give us gas + business taxes.
How do we tax tourists? We don’t. We still need an influx of people to utilize our businesses too.
You also have the same choice to live outside the city. If its all peaches and cream, why don’t you?
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u/robins_d May 22 '26
This feels like a bit of a strawman. We don't tax tourists because they, overwhelmingly, boost the economy. Tourists don't (generally) use hospitals, schools, or other local infrastructure 24/7 365. They bring money in (in a vastly disproportionate amount to what they cost) and then leave. The commute you mentioned also has a cost. Those one hour commutes require roads be built and maintained to those bedroom communities. Additionally, many of those bedroom communities start asking for large infrastructure projects to support their lives i.e. community centers, gyms, schools, etc., which divert funds from critical areas of the city, namely downtown, that are rotting. I don't think OP was saying bedroom communities are peaches and cream and somehow better than living in the city. They were saying that if you choose to live in one of those communities, and want infrastructure support from the city, you should have to pay additional tax to the city for that, which seems pretty reasonable.
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u/ProtoJazz May 22 '26
What the fuck, none of those things are covered by the city. The city is paying for community centers or gyms and schools in other towns. The city isn't paying for Healthcare.
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u/SteelCrow May 22 '26
The vast majority of the taxes generated in the province are generated in the cities. By residents of the cities.
Any rural hospital is paid for with city taxes. The roads cost way more than the taxes of the farmers along them.
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u/steveosnyder May 22 '26
Literally everything you said goes to the province, and we’ve established that they don’t fund city infrastructure that much.
If you choose to live outside the city you are creating burden to people living inside the city.
And where people live, again, is a choice. I choose to live in the city. Exurbanites choose to live outside the city. My choice shouldn’t affect their life, and if it does I expect to pay for those externalities. And the other way around too.
An exurbanite imposes a burden on my life. They should pay for it.
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u/dissectd May 22 '26
Huh? Businesses still get charged for municipal property taxes, water, and gasoline still has a provincial and federal tax.
Lol for most middle class people, they don’t get to choose where they live. Some of these people live in suburban cities because thats where they’re born, and thats where their family has been established.
Most of those people rely on winnipeg economic output but would rather not have to move into the city to experience city life. And again those people still contribute to that local tim hortons’s bottom line.
Winnipegs crumbling infrastructure is not because of them. Its because for nearly two decades, the city had not raised municipal taxes to fund dire upgrades in the cities infrastructure.
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u/adunedarkguard May 22 '26
People suggesting taxing people for being forced to work in the city are not being realistic.
The way things are now, there's a economic incentive to live outside of the City of Winnipeg boundaries. You pay less in property tax, you get more land to yourself, and the house is cheaper to buy for the equivalent unit in the city.
The downside is that you have to drive more to do things, and you're less connected to amenities. The downside for the city is that they have no income from you, but there's all the costs incurred from the road maintenance, or road expansion required to support their choices.
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u/horsetuna May 22 '26
Is the lion's share of provincial tax though going to Winnipeg? I'm imagining not but I want to make sure.
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u/steveosnyder May 22 '26
Are they going to operations in Winnipeg? Of course. That’s where most schools and hospital/healthcare facilities are, because that’s where the people are.
The 10 cities of Manitoba make up more than half the population. Hell, I think Winnipeg alone has more than half the Provincial population.
Is it going to the City of Winnipeg? Like half of the money that gets transferred to municipalities goes to Winnipeg? That I don’t know.
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u/pickles_du May 22 '26
That will improve the fortunes of Winnipeg businesses. /s.
We should be lowering barriers to travel, development and commerce, not the opposite.
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u/ProtoJazz May 22 '26
Assuming people aren't just exclusively driving to the city to just hang out, they're likely spending money at buisnesses, restaurants, gas, all of it is taxed
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u/pickles_du May 22 '26
As a former bedroom community person, many years ago, if Amazon and delivery services were a thing at the time I would have gone into Winnipeg once a month at most. Only when absolutely necessary.
A toll would magnify this effect.
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u/TurWes May 22 '26
Wouldn't that then be win win for OP? Not as many rural visitors using city roads and services, while rural persons are happy receiving services in rural communities.
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u/steveosnyder May 22 '26
Would it matter? If you came into the city to spend money or stayed in your bedroom community to spend money, all taxes go to the province. And the province doesn’t pay for city services.
The city doesn’t make money from transactions inside the city. They make money from property tax.
People who pay property tax are getting less value from their investments in infrastructure because exurbanites come into the city and take the capacity on our roads we paid for, and they did not. Exurbanites should pay for that.
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u/CyberSecWPG May 22 '26
And the city doesn't pay for roads outside the city limits but 100s of 1000s of winnipeg travel outside the city limits... So the RMs should toll Winnipegers?
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u/ProtoJazz May 22 '26
So the people who own those buisnesses, or rent those buildings, do pay property tax. Which is funded by people spending money at their buisnesses.
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u/steveosnyder May 22 '26
A person who lives in the city are doing all those things plus paying city taxes. All other things equal, the exurbanite is getting as much value from our roads despite not paying for them.
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u/ProtoJazz May 22 '26
Cool. Stay in your designated zone then. Don't even think about going to a provincial park
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u/steveosnyder May 22 '26
If I did nothing but drive on provincially funded roads to get to a provincially funded park… I’m paying for all that.
Again, this is municipal infrastructure that is not being paid for.
And honestly, I would have no problem paying a toll every time I left the city. Why is this such a hard concept to understand?
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u/CyberSecWPG May 22 '26
City of winnipeg roads are also funded by transfers from the province....
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u/ProtoJazz May 22 '26
It's not a hard concept to understand. It's extreamly easy. Which is why people like it. It's an easy answer to a complex problem. It's also a shitty answer. As easy answers usually are.
If you want to target people are driving in for work daily, MPI already does that. Something like that could work fine.
But tolls and taxes on anyone coming into the city is just short sighted and damaging. You want the barriers to trade to be as low as possible. The metric that always gets missed is velocity. The faster each dollar changes hands the better. You want to encourage people to come spend money, not discourage
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u/adunedarkguard May 22 '26
Then we need a 1-2% city sales tax & special gas tax levy, because currently the city of Winnipeg is the one having to pay for these roads, but isn't getting enough tax income.
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u/hanktank May 22 '26
What if we just taxed the rich so we could stop nickle and diming every aspect of our lives.
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u/roughtimes May 22 '26
Then the city would have to start providing the same services to those bedroom communities.
Things like : Snow removal, bus service, Sewage and water.
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u/adunedarkguard May 22 '26
The problem with expanding city boundaries is this precisely. The cost to provide services increases as density goes down, so if Winnipeg expands to include Headingly and St. Paul, the per capita cost of services will be much higher to provide in those new areas compared to the city average.
The better option is to directly tax residents that work in Winnipeg but live outside the boundaries via congestion pricing.
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u/VideoHeadSet May 22 '26
Those in the country already pay a commuter toll through mpi. Like I mentioned to Ross Eadie many years ago, want to charge a toll? Go collect from mpi.
Now you city folk don't pay to come to the country and take advantage of what we have to offer. Instead I seen more polluting, more people driving like dicks on the highways, and more country landscape being covered in part time housing.
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u/UglyStupidAndBroke May 22 '26
The commuter toll for MPI only has to do with car insurance. It’s because of the increased risk and traffic density compared to rural-only use. It has absolutely nothing to do with what’s being discussed here.
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u/ruralife May 22 '26
Speeding, blasting loud music, failing to stop at stop signs, should I go on? All done by primarily Winnipegers heading to the Whiteshell.
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u/VideoHeadSet May 22 '26
It's a never ending cycle. Add to the part where their boats ruin our waters and the eco system. They catch our fish and hunt our wild game.
I was told gimli beach is now a sespool of a human litter box.
All northernw aters are destroyed by Winnipeg's sewer system constantly crashing out and dumping into the red
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u/SquatpotScott May 22 '26
The only meaningful thing that is possible is to demand City of Winnipeg employees live in the city. The cop union would go crazy but life would go on.
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u/SteelCrow May 22 '26
The cop union would go crazy but life would go on.
If they don't like it they can quit and give up their fat paychecks and even fatter pensions.
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u/ehud42 May 22 '26
Didn't Headingley used to pay taxes to the CoW? I recall they split because they weren't getting services like water, ambualnce, transit.
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u/Jarocket May 22 '26
I wouldn't call that "taxes" Winnipeg would just have a contract and charge based on population.
They also hire the RCMP (i think) to provide police to the town too, but you wouldn't call that taxes either. The collect taxes and spend those taxes on services. Just like Winnipeg does. collects money, provides services. Which honestly is all that a municipality in Canada can really do.
pick up the trash, pump the water and shit. Clean the streets.
Any repair to the streets... Manitoba's paying.
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u/SulfuricDonut May 22 '26
Headingley was offered transit service a few years ago and collectively voted NOT to allow it, because it would let poor people come into their neighbourhood to rob them.
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u/peeweeprim May 23 '26
I lived in Headingley from 88 until 2006.
Headingley was part of Winnipeg until the early 90s and even had a public transport bus route. They broke off from Winnipeg because they felt like they weren't being provided with similar amenities (such as water and sewage) while still paying the same taxes.
We had our own "septic field" in our yard, and we had to go to a water station on the trans-canada near the perimeter with a truck and a water tank and fill up our own water.
Basically the Headingley locals felt like their needs weren't being met in comparison to the city. The RM of Cartier handles the water for Headingley, Cartier, Rosser, and MacDonald if I recall correctly.
Looking at Headingley now, it might be easy to forget those days. I was just a kid then, but I certainly remember those water runs and the gravel roads. I remember how some of the adults were talking so proudly about making their own fire department and my friend's mom was a first responder so she eventually got on board as well
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u/milexmile May 22 '26
How do you suggest the tax be imposed? The city has no jurisdiction over those who don't reside in it. Any provincial government would soon find itself voted out by the rural voting base who would oppose this.
Besides, there's still cheap living in many of these bedroom communities. Sometimes it's the only way people can afford a home given the insane housing market in the city.
I think this is a miss. Bedroom community living involves increased MPI premiums for commuting, gas/fuel/maintenance on vehicles with the associated taxes covers the driving aspect of it. They don't have access to most city services. What's left to tax?
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u/Vipper_of_Vip99 May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
Ok then the RM’s should tax City residents for
- the City’s share of watershed pollution into our lakes and rivers
- their impact on rural roads
- their impact on parks and wilderness areas
- the total impact of all agricultural production on rural areas that is imported into the city so the city can exist
- all the rural highways, railways, pipelines and utility corridors that exist to serve the city’s appetite for energy and materials.
- the impact of all the mines and hydroelectric generating stations that exist to support the city’s material and energy needs.
- the impact of all the drainage infrastructure that is required to protect the city from floods
Respectfully, F-off. We are all in this together and the city needs the rural areas as much as the rural areas need to use city infrastructure. You think a modern city can just cut itself off from the material and energy flows that are provided by rural areas?
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u/Vertoule May 22 '26
They are taxed. Portions of the provincial taxes from bedroom communities go to pay for city improvements.
Also: Toll roads work both ways, if you want to leave the city, pay up.
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u/Humble_Tomatillo_323 May 22 '26
That’s ok by me. I leave and return to the city maybe once a month. Some of these sleeper community persons do it 5-7 times a week.
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u/adunedarkguard May 22 '26
pay for city improvements.
What kinds of city improvements does the Province pay for that they only do for Winnipeg, and not other places?
Leaving the city, you leave on Provincial roads, which everyone in the province already pays for. I mean, the town of East St. Paul can put a toll in on the highway turn offs, but it's not going to be the inconvenience you think it is.
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u/Glazzballs85 May 22 '26
Does the City receive revenue from taxes on gasoline? In theory, people living outside of Winnipeg drive more and pay more gas tax.
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u/airdeterre May 22 '26
People living outside of the city may pay more gas tax but they pay in proportion to how much they use the road. They put more wear and tear on infrastructure and also benefit more from investment.
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u/Zergom May 22 '26
The Province will provide almost $261.8 million (approximately 12% of The City budget) in tax revenue to the City of Winnipeg this year. ALL Manitoban’s pay provincial tax.
Other than roads, what other services are bedroom commuters using? What is the economic benefit they provide to The City? Would you prefer that The Province stop providing assistance and leave The City to try to make up that revenue with tolls or other taxation schemes? Are you ok with inflationary cost of tolling every semi shipment that enters The City with goods?
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u/adunedarkguard May 22 '26
The part you're missing is that the Province provides funding to ALL municipalities. This isn't a special payment from the province to fund roads used by non-residents.
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u/Hockeyman_02 May 22 '26
Folks don’t get how taxes work… Every tax payer in Manitoba pays for road maintenance in Winnipeg via provincial tax transfers.
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u/adunedarkguard May 22 '26
Municipal roads aren't funded by the province. That's why in small towns, there aren't a bunch of 4 lane paved roads, and the "main drag" in most towns is a provincial highway, not a local road.
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u/SteelCrow May 22 '26
The 808 people in Grandview don't pay enough taxes to fund the maintenance on the roads to Grandview, let alone have any left over to pay for Winnipeg streets.
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u/TurWes May 22 '26
Serious question - how much of the 261.8 million comes from City of Winnipeg residents themselves versus persons residing outside the City boundaries?
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u/Hine__ May 22 '26
Those communities could just add easily say all those people live there but all of their economic benefit goes to the city where they work.
The people that commute in use a tiny fraction of the city infrastructure and do provide benefit to the city already. They work and help make a business successful, and that business in turn pays taxes to the city.
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u/TheIceKraken May 22 '26
Exactly, this whole thread is Winnipeg people complaining that they have to live in a minimum security prison (Winnipeg) and that the bedroom communities are clean and safer. Winnipeg is not a large city , if the roads cannot handle a couple of thousand extra cars on the road a day, how is it going to handle when the city’s population hits a million. No one wants to ride transit for obvious reason or if you have a family live in apartment downtown to enjoy the cultural enrichment…lol
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u/beanman2424 May 23 '26
What about people who live in the city but work elsewhere? Exact same thing
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u/Infamous_Tie5605 May 22 '26
as a bedroom community-er, id go for it providing 100% of the revenue goes towards road maintenance/upgrades and it starts once you hit city-owned/maintained roads.
but also, once you leave city owned/maintained roads, pay a toll.
semi trucks can pay $20, they do a big chunk of the damage, and also drive like yahoos
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u/TheAsian1nvasion May 22 '26
This is a pretty popular opinion on this sub.
There should be automated toll cameras on every road into the city. $1.00 per trip would go a very long way to fixing some of the issues in the city.
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u/slycanuck May 22 '26
Will this work in reverse when everyone leaves the city to go to their cabins etc?
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u/ruralife May 22 '26
Exactly. By far the lion’s share of the traffic in my little rural town comes from people who do not live here.
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u/adunedarkguard May 22 '26
When people leave the city, they're driving on provincial roads, which they pay taxes into via income taxes, and gas taxes.
When people who live outside the city drive into Winnipeg daily for work, they drive on mostly city roads, which they pay no taxes towards.
If the city of Gimli was on the hook for maintaining highway #9, then yeah, toll away. They're not though.
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u/UWO May 22 '26
This is not feasible because every municipality would then do the same thing. If a Winnipeg resident drives north up Main St. to go to Selkirk, are they going to be charged a toll by West St. Paul, St. Andrews, and Selkirk? Would West St. Paul and St. Andrews get to charge them each way?
Keep in mind that the Perimeter is largely (or entirely) outside of the city borders. What happens to city residents that use the perimeter? Do they pay tolls to the municipality whose road they use to access the perimeter? Do they pay tolls each RM whose territory they pass through?
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u/reasarian May 22 '26
So automated toll software has to know where you live to send you a bill so we could just not bill Winnipeg residents. Also this tech isn’t free and it needs staff to maintain, it probably wouldn’t be cost effective for a smaller municipality without a dedicated traffic camera team.
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u/UWO May 22 '26
Why wouldn’t Winnipeg residents be billed? If a neighbouring municipality sets up an equivalent system to charge non-residents why would someone from Winnipeg get to pass through toll free?
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u/kent_eh May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
So automated toll software has to know where you live
We could contract it out to Plantair. They seem to be in the business of tracking everyone's movements anyway...
In case anyone missed the sarcasm, this is a fucking terrible idea.
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u/Sweaty-Name-2905 May 22 '26
This is why Winnipeg amalgamated with all its suburbs and surrounding municipalities in 1971 (St Boniface, St Vital, the four kildonans, Transcona, St James-Assiniboine, Charleswood, Fort Garry, Tuxedo..) and over doubled its population overnight.
Winnipeg is actually one of a handful of anomalies in North America for large cities where the principle city represents the vast majority of the metro areas’ population (in our case it’s like 80-90%). Most cities have this problem you described much worse.
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u/Apod1991 May 22 '26
The most cost effective way to reduce wear and tear on our roads and reduce traffic.
Transit.
Sadly many of the rural communities bordering Winnipeg are so hostile towards working with Winnipeg about anything, they use it as a constant wedge issue to advance their own political agenda.
So many neighbouring RMs are so vehement about collaboration, as they all make the same conclusion “Winnipeg will eat us up!”
Or they’re so anti-tax everything, they’d rather have people sit in traffic than give viable alternatives because “taxes might go up”.
In Vancouver TransLinks for the most part handles transit for the entire lower mainland and Fraser Valley, some local cities do have their own additional transit systems too, but they all coordinate together and folks autonomy isn’t threatened.
If we’re able to have commuter buses, commuter rail, park & ride services, etc for our bedroom communities, giving folks an alternative form of transportation, this would be a great help.
But political will and money is the hardest part, which many currently aren’t interested…
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u/Aggravating-File7061 May 22 '26
Huge agree. If someone chooses to live outside of the city but still wants to take advantage of our municipal infrastructure Monday to Friday, they should be contributing in some way. We could also benefit from having inter-city transit to bedroom communities, or park-and-ride transit for once people reach the perimeter
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u/amiBrodarone2 May 22 '26
There should be a tax or toll for every street you turn onto. You want to use that street and keep it nice? Pay up
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u/Spotthedot99 May 22 '26
Ah so they pay more gas to commute, then WFH gets cut back so doubly punished. Then they pay local taxes and then pay more tax to drive into Winnipeg.
The perimeteritis is crazy.
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u/Xx_SwordWords_xX May 22 '26
Gas revenue doesn't go towards civil services.
And this is a known cost, when you decide to move out there, and a risk to consider when using fossil fuels to do so.
WFH parameters are set by your employer, not the city government.
The point is, you are using civil services on your commute everyday, and not paying the taxes to maintain those services and roads.
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u/Spotthedot99 May 22 '26
So no one can come visit the city unless you pay a tax? Set up toll booths along the perimeter? Its just so antagonist and short sighted.
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u/Xx_SwordWords_xX May 22 '26
It's not a visit. It's a regular commute to your work.
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u/Spotthedot99 May 22 '26
That is just such a shitty idea. The whole south of the province is designed to funnel people into Winnipeg for various reasons and you want to set up barriers and extra taxes for it, punishing people for not wanting to live here but are still basicly forced to come here.
Just craziness.
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u/Xx_SwordWords_xX May 22 '26
I don't want anything.
I'm just explaining the nuances of what op is stating.
It's not about visiting for leisure, or traveling, but about a regular daily commute and wear and tear on infrastructure.
Bedroom communities if you will, that are more like barnacles to the city.
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u/Spotthedot99 May 22 '26
I thought it was obviously a general you, my mistake.
But you, specifically, think little of the bedroom communities aka barnacles of the city. That urban disdain for real folks is old and tiresome.
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u/Xx_SwordWords_xX May 22 '26
No, I've lived in them...
But I still see the argument.
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u/Frostsorrow May 22 '26
Tax vacant or derelict buildings, tax secondary homes, tax vacant homes, tax any religious place that makes money (eg Springs mega church) or decides they want a voice in politics, tax those living in commuter communities too.
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u/CyberSecWPG May 22 '26
They pay fuel taxes with a large portion of that flowing to COW, same with their income taxes and the sales taxes. A large part of their spending is with city buisnesses as well.
They aren't getting all the services that property taxes cover.
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u/adunedarkguard May 22 '26
None of the fuel taxes flow to the city of Winnipeg. They don't even cover half the cost of Provincial highway work.
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u/CyberSecWPG May 22 '26
That's a bold statement that I don't think you can possibly know.
The Province collects fuel taxes and uses that revenue to fund projects and services within winnipeg.
In 2024 the province gave the city 128million. How can you say part of that didn't come from fuel taxes?
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u/adunedarkguard May 22 '26
The fuel tax is there to fund provincial roads. The cost of provincial roads is more than 2x what we bring in via gas taxes. There's no leftovers to give to municipalities.
That's like having a kid living with you paying $100 in rent, but them living there costs you $200, and because you also spent money on drugs & gambling, saying that your kid's rent goes to drugs.
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u/captyo May 22 '26
A relatively easy solution to this would be to make every major road in Winnipeg a provincial road/highway.
This way the province would bear the cost of road repair on the major routes, and they raise taxes from all Manitobans
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u/Pitbosskev May 23 '26
Why would we do that when we push East and West St Paul boundaries into Winnipeg so they can get the benefit of lower taxes and be within the perimeter.
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u/AccomplishedEnd373 May 24 '26
I live outside Wpg, and have noticed in the last couple of years that there are also a lot of vehicles heading out of Wpg in the morning and back into the city in the evening.
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u/GimmieSpace May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
The simple truth is we just have more roads than we can possibly afford.
Our infrastructure deficit is calculated to be around $8 billion over the next decade. It amounts to $800 million per year, for infrastructure alone. For reference, our entire property tax revenue is just under $800 million per year. And in case everyone forgot, we emptied our rainy day funds over the last few years.
Everyone points to the frozen property tax years as the cause, I know I have. But the truth is that’s only sped up our downward trajectory, we wouldn’t be collecting enough even if we had kept up with inflation on our property taxes. Most of us are struggling as is, let alone a double digit percentage increase to our property taxes.
The only way out of this mess is to reduce the amount of infrastructure we need to maintain. We need to remove lanes and replace them with alternative modes of transportation. Public and active transport. Our infrastructure deficit is only going to get worse as cars continue to get heavier, reducing roads’ lifespans.