
A huge tractor-trailer packed with industrial drills and other costly equipment is pulling out of one of the parking lots of Boart Longyear’s industrial facility in southeast Calgary.
The global drilling services and drilling equipment company for the mining industry is packing up shop in Calgary and moving to Saskatoon — where taxes are more reasonable and businesses are treated like valued citizens rather than cash cows for a spendthrift city council.
Andrew Cuthbert, senior manager of marketing and communications with Boart Longyear in Salt Lake City, Utah, acknowledged that Calgary’s annual double-digit business tax increases pushed the company out of the province.
“In Calgary, property taxes and business taxes have been going up, and so to help with the reduction in costs and improve efficiency we are moving that facility over to the Saskatoon area,” said Cuthbert, who didn’t know how much the company’s city taxes have increased.
As a result of the move, only five employees from the large operation are losing their jobs. The rest are staying on since they are mostly field-type salespeople.
Right across the industrial cul-de-sac off of Barlow Trail in the far southeast of Calgary is Alberta Storage Place, owned and operated by John Milino, who revealed Thursday that his city business tax bill has ballooned by 100 per cent over five years, from $46,983 in 2015 to $93,596 for a property that uses virtually no city services.
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