Rural, small and medium towns will get more provincial help
Clark pledges grants for infrastructure, economic development
Premier Christy Clark sought to rebuild bridges with local governments Friday, unleashing a raft of small but strategically targeted grants to help rural, small and medium communities.
In a speech strikingly different from last year, when she criticized local governments for paying their senior staff too much, the premier told delegates at the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention that after years of belt-tightening it was time to loosen the purse strings. But just a bit.
Clark used her annual speech to the UBCM to promise more cost-shared infrastructure funding to medium and small communities, a new “rural dividend” fund to help the smallest communities retool their economies, and more money for wildfire prevention and improved access to high-speed Internet.
And in a nod to larger communities wrestling with gang violence, she added another $5 million for targeted crime-fighting.
Frequently dropping names of mayors and commenting on the efforts of their municipalities to cut costs, attract new businesses and expand their economies, the premier made it clear she was trying to set a tone different from last year, when relations soured over her government’s refusal to consider a UBCM proposal to share provincial revenues when annual provincial growth exceeds three per cent.
That proposal concluded the property tax system is failing to meet the needs of local government. The UBCM said the government still won’t discuss it and Clark told reporters Friday the proposal is “problematic for us to implement.”
But elements of the proposal appear to be the basis for the province’s new $ 75- million, three-year “rural dividend” that will be paid to communities of 25,000 or less. Clark said the fund, designed to help small resource-based cities and towns diversify and survive, is a small bit of payback now that the province is on better financial footing and has brought in three successive balanced budgets.
“We have protected B. C.’ s economy by diversifying it over the years. We have incredibly diverse markets and we’ve all worked really hard to create that,” she said. “But we have to help rural communities continue to diversify and that is what this rural dividend is all about. It is about sharing the wealth.”
Her address to the 1,200 delegates at times appeared to be an advance speech for the 2017 provincial election. But she wasn’t above chiding naysayers and those who criticize the province.
“British Columbia is not built by people who complain, who prophesy doom and talk about how everything is going to be worse. This province gets better because we are all working together to make it better,” Clark told reporters after her speech.
The modest bag of goodies includes $45 million more for the Small Communities Fund, a part of the federal government’s New Building Canada Fund. Ottawa will also contribute $45 million. Last year B.C. and Ottawa each put $64 million into the program, approving projects in 55 communities. The money is available for communities of 100,000 population or less.
One project not on the premier’s list but desired by Metro Vancouver’s mayors is funding for the $750-million Lions Gate waste water treatment plant replacement. Metro has been lobbying both the federal and provincial governments for about $150 million each.
Metro Vancouver Chairman Greg Moore said the senior governments believe it should be funded through a private-public partnership, while Metro prefers going through the Building Canada fund.