Whereas the British Columbia Lottery Corporation BCLC, pursuant to its Corporate Social Responsibility Charter, was created to benefit the lives of British Columbians; And whereas according to the 201617 BCLC Annual Service Plan Report the provision of gambling services through traditional channels such as casinos and community gaming facilities is maturing and close to meeting existing market demand while eGaming business performance was very strong with double digit growth in revenue; And whereas host local governments received 95.8 million and non-profit community organizations received a further 134.8 million from gambling revenue in fiscal year 201415; And whereas small communities are unlikely to be host local governments and have proportionally fewer non-profit community organizations that may not have the sophistication to apply for community gaming grants creating a structural inequality between large urban communities and small rural communities with respect to the sharing of gambling revenues; And whereas eGaming is an activity engaged in province wide and not restricted by geography: Therefore be it resolved that the Province of British Columbia be encouraged to establish a Community Gaming Grant program to financially support communities with populations of less than 25,000 to be funded from BCLC eGaming revenues.
Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing Government is committed to supporting local not-for-profits in all communities. The Community Gaming Grants program distributes funds from commercial gambling revenues to not-for-profit community organizations throughout British Columbia. Grants of a 135 million dollars are made through a demand-driven, non-competitive process. The distribution of community gaming grants is not restricted by geography and as reported by the Office of the Auditor General in their 2016 audit of the Community Gaming Grants program there is a reasonable distribution of funds across the province with dollar amounts awarded compared to population levels. Approximately 90 of all applicants in this stream receive a grant. Starting in 2017, an additional 5 million of funding is provided for the completion of capital projects undertaken by not-for-profit agencies, that have a total cost of more than 20,000. The objective of the Capital Projects sector is to enable not-for-profit organizations to complete capital projects that provide significant benefit to communities. As the application assessment process is competitive, additional consideration is given to the allocation of grant funding across the six Community Gaming Grant sectors, the geographic distribution of grants throughout the province, project size and the inclusion of Indigenous not-for-profit organizations. Ministry staff will continue to monitor the distribution of the 140 million dollars against the criteria laid out in its guidelines.