WHEREAS the Rural British Columbia Project Discussion Paper Series, under an initiative called Reversing the Tide, has identified a number of best practices that, if put in place, would spur economic revitalization in the rural BC economy; AND WHEREAS reinvesting a percentage of the natural resource dollars back into the regions from which they are extracted has proven to be a positive step in rural economic revitalization in other parts of the world: THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the provincial government be requested to develop a program that would provide additional financial and capacity building resources to communities by returning a fair share of the revenue created by rural-based resource industry activity in their respective regions.
Ministry of Finance Ministry of Community, Sport Cultural Development In 200405 the provincial government created three economic initiative trusts which embody sound principles of regional and rural economic development sufficient funding for long term self sufficiency; high level of community ownership and engagement; autonomous and independent; and, able to reflect local and regional priorities and aspirations. The Province has also attended workshops regarding rural resource revenues and rural community benefits, such as the Reversing the Tide initiative. The Province currently provides funding to local governments through a variety of grants or cost-sharing agreements e.g. Small Community and Regional District grants and Traffic Fine Revenue Sharing grants and infrastructure development programs where local government cost share usually 50- 67 of the project cost with senior levels of government. Any proposed transfer of natural resource revenue or tax revenue to local governments must be evaluated in the context of the provinces need to fund essential services.