Axe the Incivility Tax on Local Government this Fall
- Diane Kalen-Sukra
- Oct 14
- 4 min read
This fall, voters in Alberta (October 20, 2025), Nunavut (October 27, 2025), and Quebec (November 2, 2025) will choose more than mayors and councillors. They will decide whether to keep paying the hidden incivility tax that is crippling local democracy and wasting tax dollars.
Make no mistake: incivility is expensive. Across Canada (and all Western democracies), municipal councils are hemorrhaging both elected and staff talent through harassment-driven resignations, burning through recruitment budgets or costly by-elections to fill vacant seats, and grinding to a halt on critical decisions and projects.
This dysfunction costs real money—your money.
I've witnessed this waste first-hand as a city manager. In fact, I left my role in 2018 to expose how this incivility tax is silently draining municipal budgets, deterring our best from public service, undermining good governance and service delivery.
Over the past eight years this has taken me on a civility tour that has since gone global since incivility has a bad habit of spreading like a contagion until civic leaders and citizens decide to do something about it. That time is now.
In this video short titled "End abuse of civic leaders and staff", I share my view in a televised town hall on the true cost of incivility and my encouragement to municipal Chief Financial Officers to tabulate the costs of incivility on local government:
"Create a dummy line item for the cost of incivility," I advise them. Call it the incivility tax.
Have we not grown weary of watching productive councils collapse into expensive chaos when toxic behavior took over? Have we not seen enough of the stalled projects, mounting legal bills, and the skyrocketing cost of resignations?
When councils descend into personal attacks and grandstanding, nothing gets done. Every delayed decision, every resigned councillor, every failed initiative represents squandered tax dollars and resources for making your community a better place.
The math is simple: incivility makes governing slower, harder, and far more expensive.
Civility is a Fiscal Responsibility
Here's what citizens need to understand: civility isn't about being "nice"—it's about moral and fiscal responsibility. Real civility is the disciplined ability to listen and hear well, earnestly seek the common good, hold people accountable, and solve problems collaboratively and efficiently, without wasting time and money on political theatre.
When leaders abandon civility to "win" at all costs, they may secure power, but they destroy the cooperation needed to actually govern. That means delayed infrastructure projects, botched budget processes, and expensive legal disputes—all funded by you.
The current challenges facing municipalities demand fiscal discipline, not political chaos. From housing costs to supply chain disruptions, local governments need leaders who can unite councils around practical solutions, not divide them with personal vendettas.
The Incivility Tax in Action: Kamloops
Let's look at a high-profile example of the incivility tax in action.
Dysfunction and toxic behavior at Kamloops city hall has made provincial and national headlines since 2022, with legal and related expenses ballooning to about $1,700,00 between late 2022 and October 2025 due to conflict management, investigations, lawsuits, and persistent code of conduct breaches.
This is a cautionary tale for voters and Council's everywhere. Don't be Kamloops.
When CBC Radio asked me to comment on the strife and dysfunction at the City of Kamloops and what the solution may be, I shared with Daybreak host Shelley Joyce that citizens need to realize that "elections have consequences."
We don't all have to learn the hard way.
Eliminate the Waste
Smart voters can spot candidates who will scrap the incivility tax and eliminate this waste. Look for those who:
listen without attacking,
answer tough questions directly,
value results over rhetoric,
admit mistakes, and
separate policy disagreements from personal grudges.
When politicians indulge in toxic behavior, they're spending your money on their ego trips. When they maintain professional standards, they can focus on delivering value for tax dollars.
The good news? Civility spreads as quickly as toxicity. When even one leader insists on professional conduct, others follow. The civic atmosphere improves, productivity increases, and tax dollars go toward actual solutions rather than political damage control.
It means drawing hard lines against wasteful behavior, speaking directly about problems, and demanding authentic debate instead of expensive political performance art.
Citizens deserve councils that work, not expensive soap operas funded from the municipal treasury.
This fall, voters get to choose:
✔️ Keep paying the incivility tax, OR
✔️ Elect leaders who understand that professional conduct isn't just good government—it's good value.
Your tax bill depends on it. So does the future of your community.
For more, read my recent opinion piece in the Edmonton Journal titled "Choose civility when electing your next city council".
In it I argue that when we choose civility at the ballot box "we don’t just get better meetings; we get stronger communities."
Join us in fostering a culture of civility in our local governments & communities.
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