WHEREAS municipal infrastructure roads are used for the industrial purpose of extracting provincial resources wood fibre, mining resource; AND WHEREAS there are no stumpage fees or royalty sharing allocated to the municipality for infrastructure maintenance: THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Union of BC Municipalities lobby the Province to create a stumpage feeroyalty sharing system for infrastructure maintenance, or that the maintenance of the infrastructure become a provincial responsibility.
Ministry of Community Services Local governments in resource producing areas have indicated an interest in opportunities to share in the resource revenue generated in those regions as a means of generating new revenues, as well as to help defray costs including infrastructure costs associated with the hosting of major industry. At the September 2004 UBCM Convention, the Premier announced the creation of the Premiers Task Force on Community Opportunities the Task Force. While the task force is not reviewing directly the issue of resource revenue sharing, one component of the mandate of the Task Force is to consider more generally opportunities for revenue sharing between the Province and communities. The Task Force is working with government to identify opportunities and parameters for the use of revenue sharing as an incentive for actions and decisions by local government that contribute to the provincial economy. The continuing mandate of the Task Force was confirmed at the 2005 UBCM Convention. The Province, together with the federal government and the UBCM, negotiated the first tri-partite agreement on federal gas tax investments in British Columbias cities and communities to support environmentally sustainable infrastructure and a long-term vision to promote the sustainability of British Columbia cities and communities. In addition, the Province has demonstrated its willingness to address unique situations with unique solutions, such as the recently renewed Memorandum of Understanding between the Province and the Peace River Regional District. Under that MOU, the Province shares revenue derived from oil and gas with local governments to compensate for the structural and geographic difficulties in assessing and collecting property tax from the oil and gas industry in the area.