Clark confident of reaching deal with northwest mayors
Premier compares negotiations with last year’s bitter teachers dispute, but feels ‘Fair Share’ agreement is in sight
VICTORIA — Premier Christy Clark says she’s confident her government can ink a new deal with Peace River-region municipalities on oil and gas revenue, even as her self-imposed deadline looms and negotiations are at an impasse with some communities.
Clark brushed aside skepticism Wednesday over whether she can settle a new “Fair Share” agreement with northwest municipalities to provide grants in lieu of property taxes from the oil and gas sector. She likened the dispute with some northeast mayors to the contentious provincial teachers strike last year.
“We’d like to get to an agreement as soon as we can, to settle things,” the premier said at the legislature.
The government has demanded negotiations conclude by the end of April.
“The thing is we’re in the process of negotiations,” said Clark. “Like the teachers agreement, there’ll be lots of people saying we can’t come to an agreement, and then at the end of the day we do. So I think we will.”
Clark’s optimism contrasts with the outlook of the Fort St. John and District of Taylor mayors, who have refused to sign any new deal and questioned why the government is trying to replace the existing fair share agreement with a new one that will mean millions of dollars less for the region.
Fort St. John Mayor Lori Ackerman travelled to the legislature this week to try to convince Community Development Minister Coralee Oakes to pause negotiations and honour the existing fair share deal, which doesn’t expire until 2020. She said Oakes wasn’t receptive.
The government will give eight Peace region communities $46 million in 2015 from oil and gas revenues as compensation for industrial drilling and processing plants that operate outside municipal tax boundaries.
The municipalities rely heavily on the money to pay for streets, policing, sewage and other municipal services used by oil and gas workers.
The government has said the current funding formula, which grows at the rate of the oil and gas industry, isn’t affordable for a province that has seen natural gas revenues decline 80 per cent since 2005. The province has proposed capping the grant at $40 million annually, which would mean $70 million in lost revenue to the Peace towns and cities by 2019. Clark pointed to a split in the northwestern communities. While Fort St. John and Taylor are refusing to negotiate, some other municipalities are more favourable to the province’s terms.
“The folks up there carry the bulk of the burden of the impacts of this resource development,” said Clark. “They also get a good bulk of the benefits in terms of employment and economic growth in the community as well, but there’s no question it has other impacts. And that’s what fair share is there to recognize.”
Peace River South Liberal MLA Mike Bernier said the mayors of communities in his riding have told him they are “very comfortable with the way the negotiations have been going” with the government.
NDP critic Selina Robinson said the government is being unfair to the region’s mayors and should “hit the pause button” on its deadline.
Oakes said she wants negotiations concluded by the end of April, to ensure communities that are applying for federal infrastructure money can show they have a stable source of future revenue in their applications.
“I certainly understand their frustration,” said Oakes.
“But we are working to support communities on being sustainable.”