UBCM outlines plan for increased provincial aid to municipalities

The organization of B.C.'s local elected leaders has laid out a plan to the province for how it would like the senior level of government to shore up the finances of towns and cities to pay for escalating costs around housing, public safety and a changing climate.

More than 2,200 municipal leaders, mayors and councillors from B.C.'s cities and towns are in Vancouver this week for the Union of B.C. Municipalities (UBCM) annual convention.

It comes just a month before voters in the province head to the polls to elect a provincial government. The race is expected to be tight between David Eby's B.C. NDP and John Rustad's B.C. Conservative Party.

Those at the convention hope the close race will mean extra attention and commitments made by party leaders — who will address the convention later this week — to the troubles cities, towns and First Nations are facing.

"We're dealing with more social issues. We're dealing with more housing issues. We're dealing with natural disasters, you know, the list goes on and on," said Princeton Mayor Spencer Coyne.

His town of 3,000 residents needs to raise $84 million for flood mitigation as it continues to recover from serious flooding in 2021 and has, so far, struck out on help from the federal government.

In a report coinciding with this year's conference, called Stretched to the Limit, the UBCM argues local governments are providing more and more public services in areas of provincial responsibility, such as housing, without a corresponding growth in revenue.

It details municipalities struggling to meet residents' unmet mental health needs and cope with social disorder but also keep up with demands from the province to provide more housing faster as well as respond to climate emergencies such as flooding or excessive heat.

"There is currently an over-reliance on the property tax system that never contemplated funding service delivery and infrastructure gaps linked to provincial mandates," says the report.

The UBCM is calling for the next provincial government to address pressures through new provincial transfers to local governments.

The first is transferring a percentage of the provincial property transfer tax to support local efforts in subsidizing affordable housing supply and homelessness responses.

UBCM also wants the province to provide an additional $650 million in infrastructure funding annually for local capital and operating infrastructure projects.

And it wants the province to transfer an annual percentage of the growth in the provincial carbon tax to support local climate action projects and emergency management planning and responses.