Whereas local governments are accountable and autonomous orders of government; And whereas local governments have legally mandated obligations to prepare official community plans, multi-year budgets, long term capital plans based on more and more sophisticated asset management systems, and a variety of other strategic plans for their communities; And whereas local governments must be able to focus on implementing their publicly approved budgets and strategic plans rather than expending their limited staff and financial resources on grant applications and unnecessary reporting requirements: Therefore be it resolved that the provincial and federal governments restructure all their infrastructure and social and economic grant programs to mirror the federal gas tax allocation to local governments in order to provide ease of access to year over year incremental funding.
Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing The Province of British Columbia appreciates local governments concerns with respect to application based infrastructure grant programs. The Ministry continues to work on developing and delivering funding programs that meet the diverse needs of communities throughout the province. With a finite amount of program funding available, the Ministry tries to balance the financial, as well as capacity, challenges faced by some local governments with the need to maximize the benefits of infrastructure programs to as many local governments as possible. The approach in British Columbia is to provide funding through a suite of different delivery models; per capita allocations, unconditional grants and application based grants. Application based programs provide local governments the opportunity to access funding amounts, particularly for those that support regulatory driven projects, that would not be achievable through a per capita or direct allocation model. In March 2018 the Province of British Columbia entered into a bilateral agreement with the Government of Canada to establish the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program. This 10 year program has a defined cost share model and does not support a direct allocation model. It does provide local government with the option to submit an application for a wide variety of eligible capital project.