WHEREAS municipalities are continually faced with downloading of services from the provincial and federal governments and municipalities are facing increasing infrastructure capital costs and increasing operational costs; AND WHEREAS the Community Charter initially proposed allowing municipalities to generate alternative sources of revenue and the Province has still not addressed new sources of revenue for municipalities: THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Community Charter be amended to permit local governments to generate additional sources of revenue, other than what are currently listed in the Charter or in other provincial legislation.
MINISTRY OF COMMUNITY, ABORIGINAL AND WOMENS SERVICES A number of potential new tax sources for municipalities were considered in the development of the Community Charter but local governments did not broadly support any of the proposed own-source revenue tools and indicated their preference for revenue sharing with the Province. As a consequence, the Community Charter Council did not recommend any specific new own-source revenue tools for the Charter. The provincial government committed to increase the municipal share of traffic fine revenues to 75 by the end of its current term. On October 22, 2004, the province exceeded that commitment when it returned the balance of 100 of net traffic fine revenues collected in 200203 to municipalities that pay for policing. This provided the municipalities with an additional 31.8 million, on top of the previous 10 million program, for 2004. The provincial government also committed to reviewing the issue of Crown Corporation payment of property tax rather than payments in lieu of tax. As a result of the privatization of BC Ferries and BC Rail these former Crown Corporations will pay full property tax. Property taxation of BC Hydro assets is being reviewed by the Ministry of Finance. The federal government has committed to share a portion of federal fuel tax revenues with Canadian cities and smaller communities as part of the New Deal for Cities and also appears to be seeking tri-partite arrangements similar to the Vancouver Agreement as a means of assisting communities. The federal government has also increased the GST rebate available to all Canadian municipalities from 57.14 to 100 equivalent to 580 million in the first year and forecast to be valued at 7 billion over ten years.