The Union of B.C. Municipalities (UBCM) convention was held September 24 – 28 in Victoria.  There were many very interesting and informative sessions which were available to all B.C. mayors, councillors and chief administrative officers.   I would like to share with you the ones that I attended and a brief description of their content.

On Monday, I attended ‘Powering the Future’, a workshop on energy and greenhouse gas as it relates to transportation and liquefied natural gas as well as the Remote Clean Energy Plan.

Also during this session, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) discussed enhanced economic sustainability and the global demand for natural gas – this demand is expected to grow by 55% by the year 2035!  B.C. has a good source of shale gas and has enough gas to last 100 years.

The’Local Government Finance – Matching Revenues and Responsibilities’ session focused on the differences between residential and business taxation rates. There is continued concern over the high industrial taxation rate and the tax ratio between business and residential rates in B.C. The session also featured policy updates from UBCM on the Industrial Taxation study and the submission to the Expert Panel on Business.

We were also very fortunate to have Dr. Harry Kitchen of Trent University give us his crash course in finance and taxation policy.  Dr. Kitchen described the range of ways that local government service responsibilities are matched with revenue tools nationally and internally.

On Tuesday, I attended the ‘Mid-Sized Communities’ forum where ‘Recruitment & Retention of Skilled Workers’ was discussed.  This is an issue facing cities and businesses North America wide as there aren’t enough skilled workers to fill the jobs available.  It is more desirable for workers to be in the larger cities than smaller communities.

Part of the Mid-Sized Communities session was on Economic Development in our communities.   Economic development is a partnership between the city and local businesses and we need to work on our competitive strengths – existing local businesses are responsible for 80% of net local employment.

In the afternoon, I attended an update on the B.C. Policing Plan and the need to determine financial cost impacts of the new contract recently signed by the Federal Government.

On Wednesday the presentation on ‘Community Destination Development: A Partnership Opportunity’ was very interesting.   Check out these websites to see what is happening in B.C.:  www.hostingbc.ca (for sporting activities in B.C.) and www.aboriginaltourism.com (Aboriginal tourism opportunities in B.C.).  It was also interesting to note that there is a large rise in the Chinese middle class who are travelling to B.C. to enjoy what we have to offer.

Our MLA Bill Bennett, Minister of Community, Sport and Cultural Development spoke to the delegation as well.  Minister Bennett spoke about many of the issues that we face in our communities including how we increase services while not increasing the tax burden.

I found the ‘Jobs and The Economy’ session very interesting!  With the downturn in the economy we all wonder where it will leave us in the future.  However, there are 51,700 new jobs in B.C. – the highest in Canada, as well as a provincial program for new trades training; there is $48 billion in investment in the liquefied natural gas sector, and over 40% of B.C. exports now go to Asia.   One of the speakers said, “if the rural areas do well, everyone does well” and I thought, how true that is.

On Thursday and Friday the UBCM discussed the pros and cons, and voted on over 200 Policy Matters and Resolutions.  A few of the resolutions were Shipping of Dangerous Good Liabilities, Genetically Engineered Free Zones (with relation to food grown in B.C.), Rural Policing Policies, Renewal of Infrastructure Funding, The Canada European Union Trade Agreement, Doctor Shortages in B.C.  and Strategic Wildfire Prevention Initiative Funding.

Councillor Denise Pallesen
The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the City of Cranbrook.

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