Corporate Voting Category for Non-resident Business Owners

WHEREAS business people who operate businesses within municipalities and choose to live outside the municipal boundaries have lost their ability to vote and to have some influence in local decision making; AND WHEREAS business people have a real and permanent interest in the welfare of the municipality as well as the region and contribute to the local economy through their taxation and licenses payable to the municipality, the economic benefit of their existence, their effect on making the community a more desirable place for existing and new residents, and the expertise and energy they offer to community events: THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the UBCM encourage the Province of British Columbia to implement legislation that would allow local government jurisdictions that wish to do so, to reinstate a corporate voting category so non-resident business owners can vote and participate in the business of the community as full-fledged taxpayers.