Twice a year – in the spring and fall – the City of Calgary surveys selected Calgarians (conducted by phone by Ipsos) on how they feel the city is being run and their overall impressions of life in Cowtown. The results of the latest spring survey were released on Thursday, revealing, among other things, 74% of respondents rate their overall quality of life as good, an 8% increase over the fall 2024 survey. Roughly 7 in 10 respondents feel the city is a great place to live, with 66% believing the city is a great place to make a living. Overall, 61% of respondents felt satisfied with the level and quality of services and programs provided by the City of Calgary, but less than half, 46%, feel they get good value for their property taxes. Trust in city council saw an increase over the 2024 surveys, with slightly more than half of respondents (52%) saying they had trust in the municipal government. In fall 2024, it stood at 41%, which was an increase over spring 2024’s rating of 38%. Of respondents, 22% expressed distrust of council, compared to 30% last fall, and 32% a year ago. Additionally, the spring 2025 survey found 63% of respondents expressed satisfaction with the overall performance of the city, including council and administration, up from 53% last fall and 59% a year ago. .Measured separately, 70% of respondents said they are satisfied with the performance of administration, up from 63% last fall, and 71% a year ago. About half, 52%, indicated they were satisfied with the performance of city council, an improvement from both fall 2024 (46%) and spring 2024 (49%). In terms of their working relationship, 61% of respondents agreed council and administration work collaboratively to make the best decisions for Calgary's future, up from 54% in fall 2024 and 58% in spring 2024. A number of new questions were added to the most recent survey to gauge government competence, beneficence, and integrity. Two-thirds of respondents think the city has the expertise to make sound decisions on important issues, although there is a gap between this confidence and the perception of whether the city focuses on matters that Calgarians consider important, with only 55% saying the city focuses on things important to them. Very important to all Calgarians are property taxes. Perhaps surprisingly, the perceived value of property taxes improved in spring 2025, with 46% of respondents saying they receive good value for their property tax dollars, up from 43% last fall, and 44% a year ago. .In terms of maintaining or expanding services, 52% of respondents prefer tax increases.The survey found only 9% support increasing taxes beyond current inflation rates to expand services, while 44% prefer increasing taxes at current inflation rates to maintain services at current levels. However, 41% of respondents have a preference of cutting services to maintain or reduce taxes, nearly evenly split between those who prefer cutting services to maintain current tax levels (21%) and those who prefer cutting services to reduce taxes (19%). Based on the size of the city’s bureaucracy (it is the largest corporation in Calgary) there will always be a debate of raising, lowering, or maintaining taxes, said Ward 8 Cllr. Courtney Walcott in a media scrum. “I think that is something that is forever going to be a challenge for us especially with an organization of this size,” Walcott told reporters. “It’s something we need to double down on so that people know exactly what we’re spending, and they see it in their own personal lives.” Ward 13 Cllr. Dan McLean said he was reasonably satisfied with the survey’s overall results, but added he feels cutting taxes is the only way to improve how Calgarians feel about the value for that money. “We’ve got to keep taxes low, that’s the key thing,” he said. .Mayor Jyoti Gondek, who is again running for mayor in the fall, told reporters, “The results are showing a clear, across-the-board, upward trend in confidence in our city. It tells me that Calgarians believed that we had a plan. Taking action when it matters, and being visible, honest, and decisive, and delivering real results on the priorities that matter the most to Calgarians.” Ward 1 Cllr. Sonya Sharp, who is also running for mayor in the fall election, said she’s not convinced the survey results were all a result of the ongoing work at the city, with a nod to the low survey numbers from last year. “In the fall, we were pretty close to rock bottom on some of those numbers so you can only go up from there,” she said. “There are some fantastic numbers in there around safety and trust and confidence, but we can always do better.” Ipsos Public Affairs interviewed 2,500 Calgarians over the phone from Feb. 27, 2025 to March 24, 2025, and the survey has a margin of error of ± 2.0 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
