Category Archives: #VanPoli Civic Politics

#VanPoli | Taxes | Downloading the Tax Burden to Municipalities

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In a disparaging VanRamblings story published last week on this site —  titled Vancouver City Council To Raise Property Taxes a Whopping 6.35% — we took Vancouver City Councillors to task for raising property taxes in our city beyond what most homeowners, small businesses, and landlords could reasonably afford.

Now, as it happens, VanRamblings is a big fan of taxes which, in good measure, pay for: our schools, from kindergarten through university post-graduate work; roads, highways, bridges and other transportation infrastructure (including public transit); our judicial and public safety systems (the courts, police, fire firefighters, paramedics, prisons); ‘social programmes’ including all aspects of child care (encompassing children in the care of the province, when family structures have broken down); all aspects of our vibrant health care system; and much, much more.

To be fair to Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart, and the five Vancouver City Councillors who voted in favour of the 6.35% property tax increase in 2022 — that would be the three Green Party of Vancouver City Councillors, Pete Fry, Adriane Carr and Michael Wiebe, OneCity Vancouver’s Christine Boyle and COPE’s Jean Swanson —  as is our wont, today we’ll publish one of our infrequent “history lessons” to explain, at least in part, the rationale as to why the Mayor and five City Councillors cast their vote in favour of a  6.35% property tax increase for 2022.

In 1984, Conservative Party leader Brian Mulroney was elected as Canada’s 18th Prime Minister, supplanting a Liberal Party of Canada that had been in power for 21 consecutive years, Canada’s 33rd Parliament in the autumn of 1984 consisting of 202 Tories, 135 Liberals, and 31 New Democrats. During Mr. Mulroney’s nine years in power, his government had many successes, on the environment and on the trade front, negotiating a groundbreaking free trade agreement with the United States. Contrary to billing, more often than not, Conservatives in power tend to be spendthrifts, all while cutting taxes for corporations and the wealthy, and failing to keep an eye on the federal budget.

In the midst of a deepening recession, when Mr. Mulroney stepped down as Prime Minister of Canada on Friday June 25, 1993, apart from and in spite of the then wildly unpopular 7% Goods and Sales Tax (GST) his government had brought in, Mr. Mulroney left his successor, Kim Campbell, with the legacy of a multi-year $42 billion annual budget deficit — a grim sum absolutely unheard of in those days.

Only four short months later, on Monday, October 25th, 1993 Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien was elected as Canada’s 20th Prime Minister. First order of business? Appoint a Finance Minister, and commit to not only eliminating the egregious annual deficit, but cut the accumulated $840 billion long term Mulroney legacy debt in half. Who would perform that masterful fiscal feat? The head of Canada Steamship Lines, from 1988 forward the Member of Parliament for the southwestern Montréal riding of LaSalle-Émard, and Prime Ministerial aspirant, Paul Martin.

In Canada, long ago the federal government negotiated what became known colloquially as a tax rental agreement with the provinces. The federal government would collect income taxes from Canadians, take a portion for federal coffers, while transferring the majority of the federal tax income collected back to the provinces. For years, back to 1945, the agreement worked well for all levels of government — until 1996, when Finance Minister Paul Martin “changed the game”.

In the 1995 federal budget Jean Chrétien’s Liberal government abandoned any pretense of federal financing of post-secondary education, changing what was known as the Canada Social Transfer into the renamed the Canada Health and Social Transfer(CHST), cutting a total of $3.5 billion in the CHST for the 1996/97 fiscal year. The total cuts to the provinces in the first five years Jean Chrétien was in power: $7.6 billion in transfer payments that would otherwise have gone to the provinces, or a devastating decline of 40.7% in health, education and other transfer payments to the provinces by the 1999-2000 federal fiscal year.

All of a sudden, the provinces were made almost entirely responsible for the largest provincial budget item: health care, and entirely responsible for funding post-secondary education, federally-funded programmes that had been in place since as far back as the end of World War II.

The good news for the federal government: by 2003 federal Liberal Finance Minister Paul Martin had not only eliminated any notion of an annual federal budget deficit — instead, creating a yearly surplus —  but had, as well, paid down $440 billion in long term debt, cutting the federal debt in half as Jean Chrétien had promised a decade earlier. The bad news for the provinces: provincial Premiers and their Finance Ministers had to come up with funds to make up for the lost / eliminated “tax rental agreement” revenue that funded provincial programmes.

Provincial governments made up for the lost federal revenue by creating, or dramatically raising, provincial sales taxes, instituting or raising fees for every imaginable service, from driver’s licenses to camp ground fees, along with instituting bridge and road tolls while looking to any other sources of revenue provincial Finance Ministers could come up with to make up for lost federal funding.

The major source of newfound provincial revenue: municipalities. If the federal government had download responsibility to the provinces for health care, housing, and post secondary education, provinces sought to gain revenue from the towns, villages and cities that filled the landscape of their provinces. All of a sudden, cities, towns and villages were almost entirely responsible for the provision of affordable and social housing, social programmes, child care, road construction and maintenance, and other infrastructure (sewers, provision of clean water), and any number of programmes previously almost the sole responsibility of the provinces.

Where senior levels of government may run deficit budgets, cities, towns and villages, school boards, and Vancouver’s Park Board are required to run an annual balanced budget. With responsibility for programmes previously funded by the province now the responsibility of municipalities, cities, town and villages scrambled to find the required revenue, which translated into: skyrocketing parking rates and extended paid parking hours, dramatically increased parking fines, and skyrocketing development permit fees for homeowners and developers alike — and, what is known as Community Amenity Contributions by developers paid to the city to fund child care centres, neighbourhood recreation centres, as well as social and affordable housing, and a variety of arts and other programmes.

Here, then — as may be seen in Councillor Boyle’s tweet above — was the dilemma faced by Mayor Kennedy Stewart and our City Councillors when, last week, together our elected civic leaders voted for a 6.35% property tax increase for 2022, to fund not just core programmes, but the programmes that determine the livability of our city, and also fulfill the election commitments made by the Mayor, the three Green Party City Councillors, and our OneCity and COPE Councillors. Last week, for Mayor Stewart and five of our Councillors, conscience won out over fiscal restraint.

#VanPoli | Vancouver City Council To Raise Property Taxes a Whopping 6.35%

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In a contentious, multi-hour meeting of Vancouver City Council, in a split vote along party lines, with COPE’s Jean Swanson, OneCity Vancouver’s Christine Boyle, all three Green Party of Vancouver City Councillors — Pete Fry, Adriane Carr, and Michael Wiebe — voting to raise property taxes in the City of Vancouver in 2022 by a whopping 6.35%, with dissenting votes coming from the former Non-Partisan Association electeds on Council — Sarah Kirby-Yung, Lisa Dominato, Colleen Hardwick, Rebecca Bligh and Melissa De Genova —  arguing that Council should hold the line at a previously promised five per cent increase, at the end of a long and arduous day on Tuesday, reason and fiscal prudence did not win the day.

Next year’s highest in Metro Vancouver property tax increase will see much of the burden borne by small business owners as part of their triple net lease responsibilities, as well as landlords, and the much-put-upon homeowners across the city.

Among the more contentious parts of the debate was an amendment by Councillor Adriane Carr in which she introduced an additional $9 million per year in taxation to fund a variety of the city’s climate emergency goals.

It includes more money for more electric vehicle infrastructure, planting trees, and improving active transportation infrastructure, and comes two months after Council narrowly voted against funding similar measures through a new parking permit system. Councillor Rebecca Bligh said she supported the initiatives, but expressed concern only “some Council members” had been consulted in advance.

“It’s not popular not to support this (climate change measure), we’re likely to be called out on Twitter for not supporting this, and being called climate [change] deniers,” she told the media.

“The people who are going to vote for this, were engaged ahead of this meeting, and the people that likely are not going to vote for this, were not engaged at all.”

Vancouver City Council budget meeting on Tuesday, December 7 2021. Photo by Jason Payne /PNG

As Vancouver Sun civic affairs reporter Dan Fumano writes today …

“Property taxes will rise 6.35% in the city of Vancouver after Council narrowly approved a 2022 budget on Tuesday. After a day of debate, Council passed a $1.747 billion operating budget, with a property tax increase higher than the five per cent proposed in last month’s draft budget. Most of the additional money goes to the police, fire department and climate measures.

On a proposed $9 million fund for the climate emergency measures, the five Councillors elected in 2018 with the Non-Partisan Association — Rebecca Bligh, Melissa De Genova, Lisa Dominato, Colleen Hardwick, and Sarah Kirby-Yung — voted no. It was one of several times Tuesday the five voted together. Four  have long since quit the NPA, citing concerns about its Board of Directors. Only De Genova is still with the NPA.

The other six Councillors, including the three Greens, one from OneCity, one COPE, and the independent mayor voted for the extra climate measures funding, with Stewart accusing the opponents of ignoring the climate emergency so evident in B.C. this year.”

Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung reflecting on the shenanigans going on at Council’s budget meeting

In the hour prior to the taking of the final vote on the 2022 budget, VanRamblings was afforded the opportunity to speak with Councillor Kirby-Yung.

“All members of Council are dedicated climate change activists, recognize our climate emergency, and to date every member of Council has voted in favour of meaningful climate change policy when it has come before Council,” Kirby-Yung told VanRamblings.

“To, at the last minute, add a $9 million climate measure to a City budget already stretching at the seams — when tens, and over the years working in concert with senior levels of government, hundreds of millions of dollars has been set aside as the City’s response to our climate emergency represents for me, the height of fiscal irresponsibility, and as such emerges as a disservice to the already overtaxed residents of Vancouver.”

Non-Partisan Association City Councillor Melissa De Genova also weighed in.

Late Tuesday evening, Councillor Kirby-Yung tweeted out these thoughts …

Councillor Rebecca Bligh less than pleased with the ‘game playing’ of some of her Council colleagues (Photo courtesy of CBC photographer, Ben Nelms, and CBC civic affairs reporter Justin McElroy)

As CBC civic affairs reporter Justin McElroy writes …

“Despite repeated motions in the last two years to try and keep the average property tax increase at five per cent or below, the $1.7 billion budget passed has an increase of 6.3 per cent. That works out to $72 for the average detached condo in the city, or $178 for the average home, not including parts of the property tax bill not under municipal control.”

Councillor Colleen Hardwick looks askance at a Council colleague during budget debate

Mr. McElroy then quotes Vancouver City Councillor Colleen Hardwick …

“The stark reality is we are just going ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching, and taking it not out of the one per cent, but of the middle-class people who are trying to afford to continue living in this city.” Hardwick said at one point. “I’m choked as I continue to see us add more and more. It was bad enough that we were looking at five per cent.”

Other than the climate measures included in the 2022 budget, some of the other increases that were not originally included in the draft budget included an extra $3.1 million to Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services for more firefighters, $670,000 for enhanced street cleaning, $1.2 million to fund the newly created Auditor General’s office, and additional funding to the Vancouver Police Department, allowing them to fill current vacancies and fund recent salary arbitration decisions.

#VanPoli | Making Members of the Media Your New Best Friends

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In 314 days, voters go to the polls to elect the next Vancouver civic government.

For which Mayoral candidates will voters cast their ballots, which civic parties and which candidates for office will garner their support? How will Vancouver’s plethora of municipal parties get their ‘Elect Me, Elect Me’ message out to voters?

Social media? Advertising? All candidates meetings? Door knocking? Well-run, well-organized, ‘get out the vote’ civic campaigns for office, staffed by volunteers?

The Globe and Mail’s Frances Bula, the dean of Vancouver’s civic affairs reporters

All of the above, and … the media, members of the working press, and more specifically, the hard-working civic affairs reporters who have dedicated their lives to reporting on democratic engagement in Vancouver civic politics: the doyenne of Vancouver civic affairs reporters, Globe and Mail freelancer & Vancouver Magazine columnist, Frances Bula, who has dedicated her working life to reporting on the livable city.

And, the hardest working journalist in civic politics, The Vancouver Sun’s Dan Fumano; former much respected Vancouver Courier, and now much respected Business in Vancouver and Vancouver is Awesome municipal affairs reporter, Mike Howell; the indefatigable Kenneth Chan at Daily Hive Vancouver (how does he accomplish so much — after all, there are only 24 hours in a day?), who is also editor of Vancouver’s première online source for Lotusland news; and the man-of-good-cheer who loves charts, the CBC’s ‘I live to report the news’, the one, the only civic affairs and jack of all journalistic endeavours reporters, Justin McElroy.

And let us not forget, the longtime editor of The Georgia Straight, Charlie Smith — independently-minded, a man of tireless endeavour when it comes to reporting on civic politics, and so very much more, a man possessed of much wit, passion and compassion. And, his civic affairs reporting colleague at The Straight, Carlito Pablo.

Another primary source for coverage of Vancouver’s critically important upcoming municipal election is Bob Mackin’s theBreaker.news. Not familiar with, don’t know about, never visited the curries no favours with politicos, tells it like it is and gives you the straight goods, the source for real reporting on the civic events of the day, and the must-visit muckraking site, in the tradition of I.F. Stone, theBreaker.news is your source for breaking news on Vancouver’s civic affairs scene.

Make no mistake, it is Ms. Bula’s, Mr. Fumano’s, Mr. Howell’s, Mr. Chan’s, Mr. Smith’s, Mr. Pablo’s, Mr. Mackin’s and Mr. McElroy’s reporting, the stories they choose to tell and their interpretation of what they see and what they’re being told, how they feel about the worthiness of the candidates who are offering themselves for service to the residents of Vancouver, who will emerge as the factor of greater importance in the determination as to which party will govern as a majority at Vancouver City Hall — every one of Vancouver’s municipal parties want more than anything else to govern as a majority — as to who will emerge as Vancouver’s next Mayor, and who will sit as Vancouver City Councillors in the 2022 – 2026 term of office.

Current and probable candidates for Vancouver’s next Mayor: Ken Sim, with A Better City; Mark Marissen, with Progress Vancouver; John Coupar, with our city’s oldest and longest governing municipal party, the Non-Partisan Association; Colleen Hardwick, with TEAM … for a livable Vancouver; Wai Young, with Coalition Vancouver; Andrea Reimer, with Vision Vancouver; Patrick Condon, with the Coalition of Progressive Electors; Jody Wilson-Raybould, with OneCity Vancouver; and independent, current Mayor, Kennedy Stewart will all want to garner much attention from Vancouver’s respected, reputable and influence-making municipal affairs reporters, make these good folks of conscience their new best friends.

All the while, the current and probable Mayoral — and their party colleague — candidates will want to convince these all-important civic affairs reporters that they, and they alone, possess the key, the will power, the wit, the acumen, the knowledge of how government works, and the exquisite humanity to make Vancouver the affordable and livable city all Vancouver residents want and need, drawing support from across the political spectrum, across Vancouver’s economic strata and in every one of our city’s 23 diverse neighbourhoods, and across and in every critically-important ethnic community comprising the city we love so very much.

In addition, the CBC’s Early Edition host, Stephen Quinn — no fool, he, and ‘influencer’ of extraordinary proportion. Plus, CKNW’s talented and inquisitive, Simi Sara, who knows how to ask the pointedly unsettling question; Al Jazeera’s lover-of-all-things civic politics, and along with former Vancouver City Councillor (and sometime CKNW host), George Affleck, of The Orca podcast, Jody Vance; former publisher-editor of the much-missed and well-researched political affairs CityCaucus ‘blog’, Mike Klassen (who is VanRamblings’ 17-year-long webmaster), and his Vancouver Overcast podcast; and last but certainly not least, This is VanColour’s tough, yet fair-minded, Mo Amir, now on CHEK-TV, Sundays at 7pm.

The coverage that will be provided to all political candidates offering themselves for service in the municipal arena and asking for your vote — by all those journalists whose names appear above — is called ‘earned media’, and is — and has always been — of exponentially greater importance to candidates running for office — or at the very least, of equivalent importance — than the combined efforts of candidate campaign teams, the donations to political parties from members of the public who will fund the civic party campaigns, and the myriad of all-candidates meetings that will fill civic affairs calendars from the spring of 2022 on, through until Vancouver’s next civic Election Day, to be held on Saturday, October 15th, 2022.

Make no mistake — journalists represent the voice of the people.

Journalists are, and have always been, the information and news conduit between those who govern, or would propose to govern us, and Canadians, be it  provincially or federally — and because, municipally, journalists and candidates are so much closer to the residents of the city whose interests they represent than is true of senior levels of government, journalists should be seen as part of a candidate’s family, as they are members of the families of the 40% of the Vancouver electorate who will cast their ballot at an election polling station, just 314 days from today.

#VanPoli | Team for a Livable Vancouver Holds Its Founding AGM

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Architect & charter TEAM for a Livable Vancouver member Brian Palmquist speaks at TEAM’s AGM

Team for a Livable Vancouver, our town’s newest political party, held it’s first AGM on Sunday evening, an event open only to members of the nascent political party.

Jak King, a longtime Grandview-Woodland and community activist, was one of 12 policy committee speakers addressing Sunday evening’s AGM.

Vancouver City Councillor Colleen Hardwick was the evening’s keynote speaker.

Brian Palmquist, an award-winning architect, provided an Affordability Policy analysis at Sunday evening’s founding event, which took place at the Anza Club on 3 West 8th Avenue. Mr. Palmquist is the author of the substack newsletter, The PATH Project, where he reflects regularly on development in the city of Vancouver, recently emerging — along with UBC’s Patrick Condon — as an increasingly important voice in civic politics, and as a regular speaker at Vancouver City Hall debates.

Unlike the fancy soirées conducted by Ken Sim and his newly-formed A Better City municipal party, or Mark Marissen’s Progress Vancouver event, both of which drew dozens of well-heeled supporters — as well as all the press that matters (no journalist worth her or his salt foregoes a free meal), the founding TEAM AGM was — surprising to many — a members only event, a decidedly déclassé affair, with a solid and upbeat attendance, nonetheless, of those party members who’ve been working with Team for a Livable Vancouver founder, Vancouver City Councillor Colleen Hardwick, to transform Vancouver into a more “livable city” for all.

Sunday evening’s founding TEAM AGM — which, in the early going, would seem to be a no press ‘we don’t want any of those stinkin’ wretches‘ allowed — which for us would seem to comprise an kind of odd, almost stealth campaign for office, a members only ‘ if you don’t love us, we don’t love you’ civic party that somehow possesses definitive plans on sweeping to office at Vancouver City Hall, at Park Board and at School Board, come Saturday, October 15, 2022. Sunday’s AGM follows on the heels of a series of policy workshops organized by Councillor Hardwick in October. VanRamblings was unable to find anyone in Team for a Livable Vancouver to speak on, or off, the record about Sunday’s AGM.

Allow VanRamblings to say that we believe that come the latter part of September 2022, leading up to October 15th Vancouver civic election day, a groundswell of support for Team for a Livable Vancouver will embolden voters to cast their ballot for TEAM — despite whatever jerks like VanRamblings have to say on the matter, in the months leading up to next year’s Vancouver municipal election — and that TEAM will sweep to victory, in the same manner COPE did in 2002, and Vision Vancouver achieved in 2008, surprising many.

TEAM’s October 24th Policy Conference, where 12 groups developed TEAM party policy

VanRamblings was told, simply, to wait for a series of announcements and a new and dynamic party website that will emerge throughout the month of December.

TEAM’s founding Board of Directors, former Green Party civic candidate and architect, David Wong; longtime community activist Sal Robinson; current Vancouver City Councillor Colleen Hardwick; founder of the VanPoli Facebook group, community activist, and Oscar-winning animator (and probable TEAM Park Board candidate), David Fine; and outgoing TEAM Board member, Sean Nardi.

As Sean Nardi wrote in the hours following the TEAM founding AGM …

“TEAM elected its first, 9-member Board of Directors, a talented, concerned group who bring a diversity of skills, experience, knowledge and perspectives to guide TEAM’s evolution.”

For the moment, the party is playing its cards close to the vest, and at least for now the party has taken down both of its websites, the initial https://voteforteam.ca/, and more recently, http://www.teamlivablevancouver.ca/.

It would seem that, arising from VanRamblings persnicketyness (there are those who employ harsher language), Team for a Livable Vancouver moved up the début of its audacious and snazzy new website, which may be found at …

https://www.voteteam.ca/ 

VanRamblings had been told that TEAM’s webmaster was something of a perfectionist — you can see for yourself what that means (pretty great, we think).

VanRamblings received a call from a TEAM founding member, this a.m. …

“Ray, I think you’re going to be impressed with who the nine people are who were selected as TEAM’s new Board members. They’re a pretty impressive group, who in the days and weeks to come will play an ever increasingly important role in working to develop policy, and a narrative on what TEAM stands for. Over time, Colleen will play an ever diminishing role in directing the affairs of the civic party she has worked so hard to create. Colleen will turn her focus to becoming Vancouver’s next Mayor on Saturday, October 15, 2022, and carrying her team to office.

The announcement of the new Board members, and the launch of the new website , will occur in short order, perhaps as soon as next week. The launch of Team for a Livable Vancouver bodes well for all of us, and most particularly, for the citizens of Vancouver.”

VanRamblings awaits future Team for a Livable Vancouver announcements.