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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Bob Brooks has seen a lot of budgets passed in his 17 years on city council.

If this year's budget goes through as planned, however, the proposed 4.75 per cent property tax increase would be the highest he has seen yet.

"We've had many years in the past where we had no increases. We had some years where we had decreases and we've had some years where we had small increases," he said.

Taxes have been on the rise since 2004, amounting to an increase of nearly 12 per cent. Before 2004, however, there had been no increase since 1999.

Even so, this year's possible hike is likely similar to what many jurisdictions are proposing, and not indicative of a trend in the city, said Brooks.

"I don't see (tax increases) as a trend. What I see is it's certainly something that's happening all across Canada at the moment because of the global situation that has trickled down into the national, which has trickled down territorially and municipally," he said.

"As far as a trend - meaning is it something that we can expect every year - no, absolutely not."

And while Brooks said he expected the proposed increase to be much higher, owing to skyrocketing fuel prices earlier this year and wage negotiations with city employees, he will still go into upcoming budget discussions aiming for a zero per cent increase.

"That means we're going to be going through the budget line by line to find out if there's ways to create some efficiencies or savings," he said.

Brooks won't be the only veteran councillor to do so.

Coun. Dave McCann served his first year on council in 1999. In that time he's voted against the budget more than once in opposition to tax increases.

"I'm one of those people that hopes our tax increases can be, in an ideal world, zero," he said.

"Now, realistically, there are a whole bunch of uncontrollables in recent years, particularly fuel," he added.

"One has to give ground to those kinds of things, to be reasonable ... you can't insist to people do the impossible."

During Monday's committee meeting, in which administration gave its first presentation on the budget, McCann asked administration to provide a table of comparative tax increases for Yellowknife's competitor jurisdictions.

"I'm referring to the Red Deers, the Edmontons, the Peace Rivers, the Calgarys - these are all places for which we compete for both residents and businesses," he said.

"One of the ongoing complaints is the high cost of living here," he added.

Whether either Brooks or McCann will see their ideal "zero" increase will be determined over the course of the next month as council debates the draft budget - and some councillors, warned Brooks, will support an increase.

"Other councillors may be going into this exercise thinking it's a quality of life issue," he said.

"As a collective group we'll have to find a way to balance those ideas to come out with a final decision."