Image Credit: Chad Klassen / CFJC Today

By Chad Klassen

MORE PROVINCIAL FUNDING

B.C. municipalities, including Kamloops, renewing calls for bigger slice of provincial funding pie

Sep 30, 2020 | 5:04 PM

d KKAMLOOPS — As the provincial leaders travel around the B.C. ahead of next month’s election, mayors from across the province are renewing calls out for more funding.

Mayors from 13 urban communities, including Kamloops’ Ken Christian, have come together and identified four priorities: mental health and substance use, affordable housing, public transit and a new fiscal relationship with the province. From the opioid crisis to affordable housing and the pandemic, costs keep growing while revenues shrink.

“If you take a look at the City of Kamloops this year, we’re not going to be receiving about $2.6 million in gaming funds, so that’s just ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ kind of money, which makes it very difficult for communities to plan in the long term and in a sustainable way,” Christian told CFJC Today.

Christian says the loss in gaming money doesn’t contribute to the city’s budget shortfall in 2020. It just means important capital projects are put on hold. It was a theme in Wednesday’s Zoom conference among all the participating mayors.

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Municipalities receive eight per cent of all provincial revenue and according to the mayors’ caucus are responsible for 60 per cent of infrastructure. They argue it is not nearly enough when so much is expected amid two public health emergencies.

“COVID-19 has made it abundantly clear that the fiscal framework that was set up in 1867, which sees local governments in Canada reliant primarily on property tax, is wholely inadequate to meet the challenges and opportunities facing us as cities in the 21st Century,” said BC Urban Mayors’ Caucus co-chair Lisa Helps, who is also the mayor of Victoria.

The pandemic, as an example, has cost the City of Kamloops $5 million in revenues. Transit ridership is down by 25 per cent, there’s been a significant drop in bookings at civic facilities and more money is being spent for extra cleaning.

Christian believes the provincial revenues are being distributed unevenly. Municipalities can no longer simply rely on property taxes to pay their bills.

“That was okay in an era when all you were doing was providing streets and curbs and gutters and storm and sewer and water,” he noted. “But now municipalities are providing a far greater range of services, so things like housing issues, things like climate change initiatives.”

Raising property taxes, which in B.C. are among the highest in North America, is not a viable option, according to the mayors’ caucus. Asked about the Liberals’ promise to eliminate the provincial sales tax (PST) in the first year, they would not be in favour.

“Municipalities are in need of more financial support, so if reducing the PST results in cuts to programs, services or infrastructure investments that our urban communities rely on, then that would be bad news for our businesses and our residents,” said Helps.

Kamloops, like many other municipalities, has been calling on the province to distribute cannabis revenues since legalization in 2018. It’s funding that Christian says is badly needed during these difficult times.