Housing and the infrastructure to sustain it rank among the top issues as municipal leaders from across B.C. gather in Vancouver next week for the annual Union of British Columbia Municipalities conference.
But the annual meeting taking place on the eve of a provincial election campaign is also shaping up as a seismograph of political priorities and moods.
UBCM — which represents some 180 local governments — underscored the focus of the conference by releasing a report Thursday (Sept. 12) highlighting physical and social infrastructure deficits worth $24 billion over 10 years. It cited a provincial report dating back to 2021 and federal reporting requirements for infrastructure funding.
Titled Stretched To The Limit, the report calls on the next provincial government to provide municipalities $650 million each year in additional infrastructure funding. UBCM is also calling on Victoria to transfer a yet-to-be-determined percentage of the provincial property transfer tax annually to support local efforts in affordable housing and homelessness response It also wants a yet-to-be-determined annual percentage of the growth in the provincial carbon tax to support local climate action and emergency management projects.
"Like many British Columbians today, local governments are stretched to the limit," it reads.
Coun. Trish Mandewo, UBCM president, said the Sept. 16-20 conference is an opportunity for all parties to hear directly from local governments and listen to their concerns. She added the resolutions that delegates will debate are reflective of what is going in their communities: issues like temporary shelters, mental health supports and health care.
"We are hoping that they are going to acknowledge the pressures that we are feeling," she said. "We have tremendous financial pressures and local governments are also using their funds to fill gaps in the provincial response to the homelessness crisis, the affordability crisis among other things."
This year's UBCM conference is taking place after a large body of new housing legislation has come into effect. Mandewo said the conference will not only review the immediate effects of that legislation, but also look beyond it, especially when it comes to infrastructure.
"If they (the provincial) are asking us to densify our communities, how are we going to fund all that infrastructure?" she asked.
Mandewo said municipalities are also dealing with other issues such as the opioid crisis. This has not only returned the focus on municipal/provincial financial relations — a working group continues to meet — but also generated some pushback from a small but vocal group of municipalities.
Speaking in Surrey Thursday (Sept. 12), B.C. Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon acknowledged those concerns, but tried to put them in perspective.
"We often hear a few stories of conflict, but overwhelmingly, there’s support out there from communities, who understand that their residents need housing"
Disagreements are part of the democratic discourse, he added.
"That's the nature of our democracy, but you got to find solutions and we are committed to finding solutions."
What those solutions will look like will ultimately depend on what happens in October, but concerns about infrastructure won't go away regardless of who wins.
"Local governments are finally seeing the investments in their communities that they want to see and those I suspect that are going to be the concerns that are raised by many local governments at UBCM," Kahlon said.
Housing and related issues are not the only ones getting attention through seminars and workshops. Other issues include health care, the resource sector, climate change and the related issue of emergency preparedness. The conference will also include opportunities for delegates to meet with each other, as well as provincial officials and representatives from various industries.
"I've got 40 meetings over two-and-a-half days, so it's going to be a busy UBCM," Kahlon said.
Delegates will not only get a chance to meet with ministers and local MLAs, but also hear from Premier David Eby on Sept. 19, and Conservative Party of B.C. Leader John Rustad and B.C. Greens Leader Sonia Furstenau on Sept. 20.
Eby will speak on the second-to-last day of the conference rather than the last day (Sept. 20) because the election writ drops on Sept. 21. Appearances are also said to be more interactive, an initial but now resolved source of conflict between UBCM and Rustad, who had expressed reservations about the initially proposed format of taking questions for 25 minutes after five minutes of prepared remarks.
"No other politicians that I know of has been put in that position by UBCM in the past and I'm not prepared to do that," he said Thursday afternoon prior to the resolution of the conflict. Rustad added he has never been afraid to take questions, but questioned the timing one day before the dropping of the writ.
UBCM said in a statement to Black Press Media Friday morning that Rustad would deliver prepared remarks only.
