Whereas local governments across British Columbia face significant infrastructure deficits, with many municipalities and electoral areas unable to meet these needs through property taxation alone; And whereas many infrastructure funding programs require local governments to compete through application-based grant processes that are unpredictable, resource-intensive, and often resemble a lottery system that creates winners and losers while diverting valuable staff capacity at both local and provincial levels; And whereas reliance on competitive, application-driven funding programs creates uncertainty in long-term financial planning and delays critical infrastructure, fire smarting, and community resilience projects, while predictable and sustained funding would enable local governments to plan responsibly, deliver infrastructure upgrades more efficiently, and reduce overall costs to taxpayers; And whereas in other jurisdictions, such as the United States, local governments retain a share of sales tax revenue, providing a stable funding source for community infrastructure and services: Therefore be it resolved that UBCM advocate for the Province of British Columbia and the Government of Canada to establish a revenue-sharing model that allocates a portion of Provincial Sales Tax PST and Goods and Services Tax GST revenues collected within municipal boundaries and electoral areas directly back to local governments; And be it further resolved that this revenue stream be designed to gradually reduce reliance on competitive, application-based infrastructure grant programs, replacing a portion of those programs with predictable, sustained funding, while not affecting statutory or annually allocated grants currently provided to local governments.
