Details

WHEREAS Canada and British Columbia have reduced the number of infrastructure funding programs available to local governments and those that are available are limited to specific types of infrastructure or specific government objectives;

WHEREAS small rural and urban local governments are struggling to deal with huge infrastructure deficits, while revenues from business, the resource sector, industry and other avenues continue to decline;

AND WHEREAS yearly property tax increases to cover operational costs are not sustainable, and hurt the ability of those local governments to attract and retain business and industry investment to their communities;

AND WHEREAS small rural and urban local governments do not have the necessary funds to acquire federal/provincial grants which require them to produce matching funds, and are therefore unable to take advantage of these infrastructure grants:

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the NCLGA and UBCM petition the Provincial and Federal governments to revise their grant formula so that they do not require matching funding, or come up with a new system that allows cash strapped local governments to address their critical infrastructure needs without having to borrow money to do so.